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Rough But Honest Miner |
Richard Wright and Cathryn Wellner live in British Columbia's Cariboo Country, almost next door to my Grandmother's house and just down the road from the farm where my grandparents homesteaded and my uncle later worked his lumber mill. My father, who grew up in the Cariboo and worked for a while as an assayer in a B.C. mine, had an ongoing interest in the lore of the B.C. gold-mining towns. As I listen to Rough But Honest Miner, my feeling is of coming home. I do believe that anyone who has grown up in rural Canada or America, especially in mining country, will get the same feel from this release.
We often relegate folk music to the past as more a souvenir than a part of our mainstream experience. The music here originates before any of us were born, but in its time it was the popular music of its day. This is folk music in the truest sense, songs of the men and women who sang them and whose stories they tell. This is simple music but never simplistic. It is political. It is sexy sometimes approaching lusty. It is terribly sad and it sings out of joy. It is a record of life not so long ago and always.
This music is no dead artifact but a vital aspect of our culture which lives on. The roots of some of these songs reach back for centuries and their influence continues today. I own 78 rpm recordings from early in the last century which are lyrically and musically not so different than the songs here. When I was a child in mid-century, much of the music I heard in the home, on recordings and sung by my father, was not much different than this and indeed included some of these very songs. Neutered versions of some of these songs are taught to school children to this day. And contemporary musicians still perform some of these songs or pick up on their universal themes.
Here is our heritage. The songs here reflect a broad spectrum of cultures which reflects some of the peoples who came to populate this continent and certainly reflects the diversity of people drawn to seek gold in British Columbia more than a century ago. While it is entertaining, this release is also an informative insight to our own past.
The medley "Seller of Souls" includes a very political version of "Yankee Doodle" explaining the strategy when "Yankee Doodle wants a state" -- America "sends some squatters in it straight and quietly annexes." Imagine this sung in a B.C. invaded by American prospectors at a time when American politicians and press threatened annexation of Canada with their slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight" (that is, moving the border from the 49th parallel to north of the 54th) and our government calmly but firmly denied them access. Imagine the row singing such a song could cause between the American and Canadian prospectors. Yes, there is power in these songs.
"Chief Douglas' Daughter" tells a satirical tale of a high profile elopement and marriage that provided a major scandal for the gossips and the press of the time.
"Dancing Girls of Cariboo" touches gently upon the subject of prostitution in the mining towns, and "The German Lasses" addresses the difficulty the miners in the Canadian north had meeting women. "Listen to the Mockingbird" (the melody of which many will recognize as the Three Stooges' theme) tells a story of love, death, and longing.
The music here draws upon traditional and often repeated melodies. In some songs, I hear echoes of the theme song from Gilligan's Island, "The Church in the Wildwood" and "Abdul the Bulbul Amir" among others. This effect comes only after many listenings. The more common effect will be that the music will wrap itself around the listener like a childhood blanket, bringing a feeling of comfort and reminiscence.
There are many more songs, each with its own tale to tell, but there are also spoken pieces which give us brief glimpses into life in that long ago time. Interspersed among the songs, these readings of actual Nineteenth Century documents add interest and depth to this very special archive.
As just one example, in the Cariboo Sentinel newspaper, in 1868, Rebecca Gibbs writes of a miner who brought her "One Red Shirt" to wash. The shirt was so worn that it was neither washable nor reparable. Between that fact and his general demeanor, she discerned that this miner was destitute (not her word, but what she means). She rebukes the mine owners and traders who become wealthy employing these miners to pay them at least a living wage.
This monologue opens a spoken and sung set detailing the hard times and hopes of the miners. "The Skedaddler" tells of one miner's tenacity "though dead broke" and explains that, while the search for gold is a factor, he also hangs on because here "skedaddler is free" to live as he pleases. In 1870, a Reverend Reynard writes to his Bishop of the hardships he and his family must endure in the Cariboo so that, unless a raise in pay is forthcoming, he feels compelled to send his wife and children home to England. "Hard Times Come Again No More" is a plea common to many in the gold fields.
While some of these songs have origins in the United States or Europe, several of the lyrics originate in British Columbia and the Cariboo, reflecting our unique Canadian perspective. Richard Wright and Cathryn Wellner are to be commended for preserving this important piece of our history.
Every song tells a story. Every story told links song to song. The effect is a unified historical perspective greater than any of these songs could provide in isolation. But there's more. There's a book.
Castles in the Air is included with Rough But Honest Miner. This is an honest to goodness 96 page perfect bound book, not just a jewel case liner, and it adds again to the depth and insight of this excursion into the past. Here are the background stories and the lyrics of the songs, archival photographs, and additional anecdotal materials.
Each song and spoken interlude on this recording provides a jumping off point to further explore our history, not just the history of the Cariboo but of Canada and North America. With the additional resources added by the companion book and an associated website, this release belongs in every Canadian school and, I should think, every Canadian home.
If I am disappointed in this release at all, it is that the producers did not more fully utilize the available technology. The sound recording on this disc totals a few seconds more than one hour. In the space left available by the remaining fourteen minutes, there is room for a rather large CD-ROM section -- room enough to hold the entire contents of the included book plus videos and additional sound clips, archival text and photographs, or even a teacher's package and lesson plans. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part, given the tremendous amount of work already involved in creating Rough But Honest Miner and Castles in the Air.
For more information on the British Columbia gold boom, be sure to visit Richard Wright and Cathryn Wellner at goldrushbc.com.|
Since about February 14, 2004, |
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