Heartwood: The Songs

Never Been to Dixie (Jay Stielstra)
Charlie first heard Never Been to Dixie sung by its author at a pub session. It was penned by Ann Arborite Jay Stielstra, and figures in North Country Opera, the first of his several musicals that weave a plot line around some very singable songs. Now residing in Canada, Charlie took the liberty of changing a couple of place names in the last verse (Ontario for Michigan and Manitoba for Minnesota).

Slow Train through Georgia (Norman Blake)
From a terrific Norman Blake solo album called Whiskey Before Breakfast. Charlie has been singing this one for a lot of years now. A sweet, simple song that just doesn't seem to wear out.

The Warlike Lads of Russia (trad.)
In 1812 Napoleon attacked Russia, expecting an easy campaign. The onset of the Russian winter, and devastations caused by typhoid, influenza, dysentery and running battles with the Russians took a heavy toll on the French army. Napoleon's biggest surprise was that even after he captured Moscow the Russians went on fighting as if they thought there were more to their country than the capital city. Hitler made pretty much the same mistakes several generations later.

Emma's Dance / The Hills of Mono (Anne Lindsay)
Emma's Dance expresses the joy and simplicity of being four years old. Written for her niece, Anne found the tune taking shape on the back porch of her in-laws' farm overlooking the Beaver Valley. The Hills of Mono is the location of Anne's parents' farm, where she spent all her childhood summers. "These places have always been my heartland."

Flowers in the Snow (Bill Staines)
A tragedy in two verses by Bill Staines. [The liner notes of our CD erroneously state that this song comes from Staines' The Whistle of the Jay. That's a nice album, but you won't find this song on it. It's actually from Sandstone Cathedrals.]

Fifty Miles of Elbow Room (F.W. McGee)
A piece of 1940's folk theology credited to F.W. McGee, a black American preacher and prolific songwriter. Though it obviously intends something deeper, the surface sentiment is compelling for city-dwellers like us, and singing it has helped to pass the time in rush-hour traffic.

Jamie Raeburn (trad.)
The song's protagonist is subjected to the once common British penal practice euphemistically called "transportation": a sentence of forced labour in exile on a distant continent. From 1718 to 1775, tens of thousands of British convicts were forcibly relocated to North America under a sentence of penal servitude. Traffic ceased during the War of Independence, recommencing in 1785 when the colony of New South Wales (Australia) was established for the purpose. Jamie's crime is nowhere stated, and although transportation was sometimes employed as a commution for the gallows, often enough the crime committed was appallingly trivial.

Breton Tunes (trad.)
We've yet to learn the titles of these tunes, if such indeed exist (it's just as well, since we'd have no idea how to pronounce them anyway). Because they're the only Breton tunes we play, the moniker "Breton Tunes" works for us. We were introduced to them by flute and keyboard player Nicholas Williams, who when proximity allows, joins us in the Toronto contra dance band The FootNotes.

When You and I Were Young, Maggie (George Johnson)
In 1864 George Johnson, a young teacher from Binbrook Ontario, wrote this poem to his bride. A year later they travelled to Cleveland to watch President Lincoln's funeral train pass by in a cold rain. Maggie caught pneumonia and died. In 1866 James Butterfield, a Britisher living in the United States, set it to music, and Canada had it's first international hit. Alex learned the song as a child from his parents who sang it in the car when they thought that he was asleep.

The Log Driver's Song (Mac Beattie)
Charlie learned this little gem from Canadian Earl "Bud" Roy, who sang it in an Ann Arbor pub some years ago. Bud was kind enough to recite the whole thing while Charlie laboriously scrawled on a napkin destined to go through the wash. Years later, thanks to Steve Fruitman (host of CIUT-FM's Back To The Sugar Camp and an irrepressible Beattie fan) Charlie finally learned that the song was not traditional, as had been assumed, but written by a known artist with lots of other great songs. Sadly, although he was a very well-known figure in his 1950's heyday, not one of the many recordings made by Beattie and his Ottawa Valley Melodiers is currently in print.

My Nine to Fives are Over (Charlie Cares)
Charlie began writing this song the morning after his last day at a really lousy job from which he'd been fired. The characters portrayed are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

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