09/20/2024
In the 1960s I was figuring myself out and in the process taking classes at Penn State. One of the truly important persons who pointed a way was the pioneering American folklorist SAM BAYARD. He taught me about the a cappela ballad tradition, fife & fiddle tunes, and s***f dipping and the little intricate carved boxes went with the habit and that he collected in maybe then hundreds.
Most of all, Sam taught me about song collecting, in his case starting out in the 1930s in the barely populated backwoods and hill country of SW Pennsylvania and down into West Virginia. He was looking for folks who could sing the old story songs that had survived the migration to America from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
Sam did what he had to do to get those songs. He told me stories about being run off taken for a revenue man about to bust a makeshift distillery and sharing sleeping quarters with the kids and the dogs all on the promise to get a performance of song the next morning. In the beginning, Sam didn't have a recording machine. He sat with pencil and paper and wrote down the words and notes as he heard them.
It was Sam who encouraged me to go out and find my own doors to knock on, in my case not for songs performed live, but rather for the old 78 rpm records that had all kinds of song treasures captured in the groove.
I got to know Sam better than most because in 1969 I was the prez of the Penn State Folklore Society and he was our advisor. I got to spend a good bit of time with him. In 1973 when I set out to be a writer, Sam was the subject of my first published piece. SING OUT! THE FOLKSONG MAGAZINE. 1973. I offer it here if anyone is curious to learn about him. Reading it now, I have to laugh about how "literary" I was trying to sound. But ya gotta start somewhere. So, here 'tis. If it puts a smile on your face, mission accomplished
