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Cariboo Road Music in collaboration with SKOOKUMCHUCK RECORDS Presents |
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Where the Fraser River Flows
and
other songs of the Pacific Northwest NOW AVAILABLE ON CD |
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Item # WL87-0330 Z Sample♫ ON/OFF |
$18.00 plus $4.00 shipping & handling Secure Online Payment Options |
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To order by Cheque or Money Order,
please print and fill out the Order Form. Click here for
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Rainshadow Gallery Online
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photo by Stanley G Triggs (courtesy of SKOOUMCHUK RECORDS) |
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Where the Fraser River Flows
Songs from the PJ Thomas Collection both Oral and Archival. Sung throughout by Phil Thomas with the assistance and accompaniment, as indicated, of Barry Hall (BH), Stanley G. Triggs (ST), Michael Thomas (MT) and Bob Webb (RW).
Side 1: Accompaniment and additional vocals
Side 2: Accompaniment and additional vocals
All arrangements
and adaptations Philip J. Thomas |
 photo courtesy of David Randell Querido |
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Phil
Thomas has been collecting, singing and writing about folk music
from his native province for almost half a century.
When,
as a teacher Phil was looking for ways to illustrate the social and
economic history of the province he turned to folk songs. He became an
expert on the folk songs of British Columbia and has collected songs
orally in most parts of B.C.'s vast area. Five hundred items from this
valuable collection are on tape in the Aural History Division of the
Provincial Archives in Victoria.
Over the years, he
has discovered and shared dozens of songs about the railways and
fisheries of British Columbia, songs created by loggers, farmers and
miners, and songs from the earliest settlers and the days of the gold
rushes. His book
Songs of the Pacific Northwest, should be a cornerstone of any
As BC's foremost folksong collector, Phil has made a priceless gift to all of us who care about folklore in the Pacific Northwest. ~thanks to John Ross, Seattle Folklife Festival
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P. J. Thomas Popular Song CollectionThe collection reaches into many aspects of Western popular culture through the centuries. The songs are predominantly in English, but French, Gaelic, German and other ethnic groups are also represented. The collection contains a wealth of material useful in the analysis of the incidence and significance of popular song in society. "Popular" is used here to indicate that the songs are "of the people"; they are not of an elite nor are they simply a commercial product. The collection thus omits specifically fine art song and the ephemeral products of the commercial music industry. Songs in popular culture include: ballads, folk lyrics, lullabies, nursery rhymes, songs of the Gold Rush, fur trading, mining and prospecting songs, truck driving songs, logging songs, fishing songs, sea shanties, hymns, carols, spirituals, gospel, dance songs, national and ethnic songs, soldier songs, bawdy songs, topical songs, political and protest songs, blues, songs for games, parodies, nonsense songs, limericks, community and camp songs; college songs, instrument instruction; songsters, broadsides; biography and criticism; etc.
At present this collection is accessible through a printed catalogue in the University of British Columbia Main Library, Special Collections; Indexes for the |
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Notes on the Songs
Side 1
1. The Bold Northwestman: This ballad survives from the sea-otter fur trade on the northwest coast which by 1791, when this ballad originated, was verging on warfare. The tune collected in New Brunswick in 1928, is altered from stanza to stanza to accommodate the verse as was the custom with such ballads. The text is from a broadside, printed circa 1840. 2. Annexation – 1846: This song gives the British point of view about the border dispute which was basically settled in 1846 when the 49th parallel was extended westward over the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. The text comes from Bentley’s Miscellany, London, 1846. 3. Far From Home: This song, by a miner who joined the Lower Fraser River goldrush in 1858, was printed in Hutchings’ California Magazine, September, 1859. It was signed “WHD, Emory’s Bar, July 1859.” 4. Young Man From Canada: This song, here given with its original tune, relates forthrightly but with humour the experiences of a youth from a farm near Hawkesbury (now in Ontario) who arrived in Williams Creek, Cariboo, in 1863. (Published in Barkerville, 1869). 5. Old Faro: This mock lament for the death of professional gambling, personified as “old Faro”, was occasioned by a Barkerville magistrate’s order which prohibited such games as faro, monte and lansquenet in rooms adjoining bars. Most professionals had either to work or leave the region. (Published in Barkerville, 1869). 6. Bonnie Are the Hurdies, O!: James Anderson in his second verse letter to “Sawney” (Sandy, diminutive of Alexander) included this reaction to the sojourn in Barkerville in the summer of 1865 of a troupe of dancing partners. It is a reworking of Robert Burns’ “Green Grow the Rushes, O”, itself based on an older song. (Published in Barkerville, 1868-9). 7. Seattle Illahee: The title, in the Chinook trade jargon, means literally, “The Place Seattle”. However, in the 1860s, Seattle boasted a brothel called the “Illahee” which had a wide notoriety in the Puget Sound – Gulf of Georgia region. (See book for translation and more words). 8. The Old Go-Hungry Hash House: Although boarding-house fare was accepted by the hungry single men at the turn of the century, it came in for good-humoured criticism as well. This song was sung for me by Ed Dalby, of Campbell River, B.C. in 1959.
Side 2
1. Klondike!: This song is a reworking of a London journalist’s humorous verses on the Klondike gold rush of 1897-8. Capt. Charles Cates of North Vancouver, who got it from his father, sang it for me in 1959. 2. Teaming Up the Cariboo Road: This song is a reworking of the 1885 Tin Pan Alley minstrel song, “Climbing Up the Golden Stairs” made to fit the Ashcroft Barkerville trunk road after the construction of the CPR. It is based on two oral fragments, the major one with the chorus sung for me by Gerald Currie, Chase, BC in 1963. 3. Where the Fraser River Flows: This is one of the songs the Wobbly song writer Joe Hill made in 1912 for the striking construction workers on Mackenzie and Mann’s Canadian Northern Pacific Railway (later pert of the CNR). The original tune is “Where the River Shannon Flows”, but this upbeat variant is now common in BC. 4. Way Up the Ucletaw: This is a hand-logger’s song form about 1898 when Ed Dalby first went to work in the Vancouver Island woods. I learned it from him in 1959. “Pitchbacks” are giant Douglas firs. 5. Buck’s Camp Down at Monroe: Before there were union safety and grievance committees, a logger could show his disapproval of a camp by demanding “his time” – his pay – and leaving; he could further tell others about it through a story or a song such as this one which berates a camp at Monroe, Washington. I learned it from Ed Dalby of Campbell River, BC in 1959. 6. The Potlatch Fair: This song tells of an up-coast logger getting little satisfaction from a spree in Vancouver. Capt. WR (Bill) Hall of Campbell River, BC sang it for me in 1959. 7. Way Up the Monashee Range: The Monashee Mountains to the east of the Okanagan Lake were among the many regions of BC prospected by George Winkler, who wrote the verses. I found the poem in a booklet and made a song of it. I met the author in 1964, then a spry 89, and was pleased he like what I had done to his creation. 8. Are you from Bevan? The chorus of this song dates from the bitter struggle from 1912 to 1914 of coal miners on Vancouver Island for recognition of a union of their own choice. The verses in part rework the original “Are You from Dixie?”, and briefly tell the story of the strike. The “foul” was the calling out of the milita against the miners in 1913. 9. Song of the Sockeye: These verses written by Ross Cumbers, a gillnet fisherman, in 1940 at Rivers Inlet, were discovered by Nick Guthrie about 1960, and I put a tune to them. When I eventually met Ross Cumbers, I sang him the song and he wished me well with it. He had fished the 17 years be fore turning to carpentry for his livelihood. 10. Pender Harbour Fisherman’s Song: This good-humoured denigration of the men who operated small gillnetters and trollers with their very confined living conditions, was probably written by a logger. I recorded it from Norman Klein, who came from Kleindale near Pender Harbour, BC. 11. Young British Rancher: This reworking of Kipling’s “Young British Soldier” pokes fun at the Upper-class Englishmen who were sent to this “outpost of Empire” with a family pension or remittance. It appeared in a Victoria BC magazine in 1897.
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Produced by Cariboo Road Music 2004 Williams Lake, BC |
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good
collection of regional folk songs.
