Singers
January Men And Then Some:
Bob Richardson
Jamie Huntsburger
Keith Davie
Charles Crane
Carol Rohl
Gordon Bok
Mill Street Singers:
Ellie Libby
Phil Gerard
Paul Cartwright
Mary Anne Brown
Bill Huntington
Ken Gross
Susan Shaw
Jenny Baxter
Margaret MacArthur and I were presenting a weekend workshop about making music for poetry, wherein attendees brought in poetry of their choosing or making. My memory is that, when it came turn for Mary to offer her poem, she began to voice strong doubts as to its suitability. BUt then the person to her left in the circle, with a gentle: "May I?" took the page from her hand, studied it for a moment, and sang the first verse, making the tune up on the spot. Then the next person took it and made up her own tune for the next verse. And so it went around the room, each one of us discovering that whatever we sang didn't need to be perfect or wonderful or memorable: all it had to be was possible... A few years later, the poem haunted me enough that I made this tune for it and sent it to Mary. She liked this tune also. January Men And Then Some had sung it for a few years, and when our friends the Mill Street Singers also took it up, we decided to record it together. Hamilton Hall recorded it in Camden. A couple of people who attended the workshop could not corroborate this memory, but it exemplified the kind of generosity and support I have felt with the community of folk music through many deeply nourishing years.
For the birds that leave and the birds that stay; praise, praise, praise
For the horn of the owl and the wing of the jay; praise, praise, praise
For the God that is born and the God that dies; praise, praise, praise
For the glory of dawn and the snow-clouded skies, praise, praise, praise
For the bite of the air and the fire's flames, praise, praise, praise
For the power of silence and the power of names, praise, praise, praise
For the mouse in its burrow and the bear in its den, praise, praise, praise
For the frost on the marsh and the ice in the fen, praise, praise, praise
For all that is easy and all that is hard, praise, praise, praise
For what leaves us joyful and what leaves us jarred, praise, praise, praise
For the things that endure and the things that leave, praise, praise, praise
For the things that we have and the things that we grieve, praise, praise, praise
For the quiet of moon and the noise of the sun, praise, praise, praise
For the dark that is here and the light that will come, praise, praise, praise
For the quiet of moon and the noise of the sun, praise, praise, praise
For the dark that is here and the light that will come, praise, praise, praise
For the quiet that is here and the light that will come, praise, praise, praise