THE CONNECTICUT PEDDLER:

"ADIRONDACK SAMPLER"

   This Centennial Edition of "Adirondack Sampler" is presented in honor of the founding of the Adirondack Park by the New York State Legislature on May 20, 1892.  Its "Blue Line" boundary encompasses six million acres of mountains, lakes, forests and towns, with 2.4 million acres publicly owned and declared "Forever Wild" in the State Constitution.  The 3.6 million acres privately owned are  home to 130,000 residents.  A treasure trove of history, culture, music, folklore, adventure and scenic splendor!

ADIRONDACK SAMPLER: Cassette.  (65:27)  c 1992.   Recorded and mixed by Charles Eller in 1992 at Charles Eller Studios, Burlington, VT.  Cover photo: Stan Ransom.  "Adirondack Sampler" created and stitched by needlework expert Susan J. Suess, formerly of Plattsburgh,NY.

Instruments:  12 string Alvarez guitar, One Star tenor banjo, 1926 Model A Gibson mandolin, Kenneth Butler hammered dulcimer.

SIDE A (32:27)

1.  The Adirondack Mountains.  A Centennial tribute to the Adirondack Park.  Original.  Vocal with guitar.
2.  Champ.  The Lake Champlain monster is our favorite resident.  Tune, traditional:  "Old Hewson, the Cobbler," adapted from the singing of Larry Older.  Vocal with guitar and mandolin.
3.  Ripsaw/Cold Frosty Morning/Adirondack Cascade.    Fiddler Vic Kibler wrote the first tune, the second is traditional, and the third is original.  Hammered dulcimer and guitar.
4.  Allen's Bear Fight.  Text traditional.    Original tune.  Vocal with guitar and banjo.
5.  Shantyman's Life.  Traditional.  Vocal with guitar.
6.  Dance at Clintonville.  "E'town" is Elizabethtown, NY.  This is an Essex County version of "The Backwoodsman," or "The Green Mountain Boys," a traditional lumberjack song.    Vocal with guitar.
7.  Once More A-lumberin' Go.  Traditional.    Perhaps the most well-known of the lumberjack songs.  Vocal with guitar.
8.  Ballad of Blue Mountain Lake.  Traditional.    Vocal with guitar.
9.  Song of the Saranac River Drivers.    Traditional.  Previously unrecorded.  Tune:  "Cutting of the Pines."  Sung in 1972 to Sarah Baker, Saranac Town Historian, by Loren Hooey (pronounced "Huey"), who had been a Saranac River log driver in 1900, when he was 18.  Vocal with guitar.
10. Adirondack Waltz.  Original.  Hammered dulcimer, guitar and mandolin.
11. At the "San."  Anonymous poem, probably by a TB patient in Saranac Lake.  It appeared in a 1904 issue of "The Outdoor Life," published by the Trudeau Sanitarium, and found in the Adirondack Room of the Saranac Lake Free Library.  Tune original.  "Smoking glass" was the term patients used to describe the taking of their temperature.    "Cousining" was the practice of calling your sweetheart your "cousin" so he or she would be allowed to visit you.  Vocal with guitar.
12. My Adirondack Home.  Text by Leslie Stanton.    Tune original.  Vocal with guitar and mandolin.

SIDE B  (33:00)

1.  Our Mother Earth.  Original.  Inspired by an article in "Adirondack Life" magazine by Native American Ray Fadden, Curator of the Onchiota Indian Museum.  Vocal with guitar.
2.  Adirondack Acid Rain.  An appeal.    Original.  Vocal with Guitar.
3.  Bert LaFountain's Packard.  Traditional Prohibition song, George Ward version.  Vocal with guitar.
4.  Down in the Joker Mine.  Ed Crowe composed this mining tragedy song in 1913.  It was sung by Mrs. Scribner of Mineville and recorded by Marjorie Lansing Porter.  Vocal with guitar and mandolin.
5.  Rippling Waters Jig/Tuggerman's Jig/Bride of the Winds Jig.  Three French-Canadian fiddle tunes.  The first was learned from Paul Van Arsdale, the second from 88 year old French-Canadian fiddler, Victor Bourdon, the third from the playing of Canadian Don Messer, who influenced many fiddlers from upstate New York.  Hammered dulcimer and guitar.
6.  Ironville Mine.  Original.  The closing of the iron mines in Lyon Mountain and in Mineville caused great hardship for miners and their families.  This song is part of the iron mine exhibit at the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake.  Vocal with guitar.
7.  The Redford Carousel.  Original.  Come ride the historic carousel at the "15th of Redford" picnic in Redford, NY.    Vocal with guitar.
8.  Adirondack Rain.  Original.  Vocal with guitar and mandolin.
9.  Peggy Gordon.  Sprightly Adirondack variant of a Scots/Irish drinking song.  A combination of Ted Ashlaw and Harold Thompson versions.  Vocal with guitar and mandolin.
10. Underground Railroad.  Text original.    Traditional tune,"Hale in the Bush."  The North Country's part in the underground railroad.  Canada abolished slavery before the United States.    Vocal with guitar and tenor banjo.
11. Larry O'Gaff/Johnson Pond/Irishtown Breakdown.    The first and second tunes are traditional.  Randy Graham and Wesley Morse of Minerva recorded "Johnson Pond," found in the Adirondack Museum Library.   Thanks to Dan Berggren for permission to use "Irishtown Breakdown" from the playing of the late Cecil Butler of Schroon Lake on his recording, "Adirondack Green."  This tune is known in Canada as "Guise a Sherbrooke."   Hammered dulcimer and guitar.

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