We Are Each Other's Keepers

Just back from folkie camp (TradMad week at Pinewoods). Idyllic setting (woods, lakes); gorgeous weather (but for one terrific thunderbolt that struck the water); a lovely community; glorious music. Oh, and three good square home-cooked meals a day, all locally sourced, with proper pots of tea. One fortunate evening we happened to have five vegans at our table, so us three omnivores got all the chicken pot pie, green beans, salad, new bread, and vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce we could hold.

The camp provided free tests, and all of us (130+) turned in negatives three days running (first of all to gain entrance and twice after). Cons should be this sensible.

It’s all very leftie and queer-celebratory. Everyone makes others garlands of green leaves to wear. It’s the kind of place where a couple of women in their 70s are talking mycology (“... it looked like an amanita, so I crawled under the dance pavilion to have a look ...”), while a boy in his 20s is singing a German social democratic anthem to the Celtic harp.

My old hero Martin Carthy was there with his daughter Eliza. Hearing Martin for the first time back in 1979 was transformative. He sang “Willie’s Lady” (Child 6) and that was that: my secondary world was made of ballads. Now it grieves me terribly to see him growing frail and forgetful; but still he kindles, still he glows. He seems to draw his memory from his guitar. A tune emerged; he stopped and sang the opening of “Willie’s Lady” a capella. He talked about the making of his version of it, how his friend Ray Fisher (Archie’s sister) had found the Breton tune for it. In his telling, the lady (cursed by her mother-in-law to labor endlessly and never to give birth) is not a mere sufferer, but a rival witch, an incomer from across the sea with a foreign magic of her own.

The Appalachian ballad traditions session was taken by a stunning singer and storyteller, unknown to most of us. Sarah Burkey’s come from some hard hard places, dirt poor in Kentucky, then devastated by Helene in western North Carolina; yet is grounded and joyful. An inspired benefactor at the camp gave her Jean Ritchie’s old handcarved dulcimer (a lovely thing), and to see Sarah touch it, listen to it, was heart-stoppingly beautiful. It played “Amazing Grace” first of all. And then she sang “Wayfaring Stranger” in English and Cherokee. Sarah, who teaches Native American children, had those words from tribal elders, and they are not translated from the Christian song, but prayers from the Trail of Tears.

Daringly, I took a class in song performance. I am utterly terrified of singing solo (above all in the company of gifted singers), so I dared myself to do it. I thought hard about what I would give them and realized that trying for prettiness or pathos only sends me horribly offkey, so I went for raunch and attitude, and gave ‘em “My Husband’s Got No Courage In Him.” I am told it was one hell of a performance. All I remember is glimpsing the tutor bent double, scarlet in the face with stifled laughter.

This year I didn’t see the Pleiades reflected in the still clear water, but you can’t have everything. Maybe next year.

Nine