Keepers of Tradition

Curious about the Native peoples who once lived along the banks of the Merrimack River? The Lowell Folklife Series invites you to a talk by Dana Benner on Saturday, November 5 at the Event Center of the Boott Mills Museum. When most people think of Native peoples at or around the time of contact with Europeans, they think either of Thanksgiving or fierce warfare. Many people are unaware of the extensive social traditions, trade relations, and industrious nature of the Native nations. The area along the Merrimack River that we define as Lowell was home to the Pennacook people.  Just to the south were the Massachusett, who were direct trading partners with the Pennacook.  Mr. Dana Benner will explore the rich traditions of the Pennacook nation, leaving the audience with a greater appreciation of the people who once called this area home.

Dana Benner is of Micmac/Penobscot/Piqwacket descent and is a member of the Inter-Tribal Council of New Hampshire.  He has been studying Native history and culture his entire life and has been writing about it for over 25 years.  He holds a BA in Liberal Arts with a concentration in U.S. History and Native Culture from Granite State College and he is working on his M.Ed in Heritage Studies with a concentration in Native History and Culture from Plymouth State University.

This talk is free and open to the public.

2:00 p.m @ 2nd Floor Event Center, Boott Mills Museum

110 John Street, Lowell, MA

For more information: 978-275-1719

Event sponsored by the Lowell National Historical Park and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

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Join us this Saturday evening for a free concert of Irish and African music featuring two remarkable female vocalists — Aoife Clancy and Adjaratou Tapani Demba. This concert will take place on Saturday March 19, 2011 in the sanctuary of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in downtown Lowell.

Aoife Clancy brings a refreshing new voice to traditional Irish songs, ballads, and recitations. Originally from County Tipperary, Ireland, Aoife was brought up in a family steeped in music and poetry, which her father Bobby Clancy passed down to her.  She is a former member of the popular “Cherish the Ladies,” one of the most sought-after Irish American groups in history.  Now with seven recordings under her belt in the last decade, Aoife has clearly established herself as one of the divas of Irish folk music. Accompanying herself on the Irish bodhran (drum), Aoife will be joined by Shannon Heaton on flute and  All-Ireland champion stepdancer Jaclyn O’Riley.

Adjaratou Tapani Demba brings us the West African traditional art of praise singing. In her native Mali, she is known as a djeli – a kind of oral historian, peacemaker, and performer who is born into the responsibility of keeping alive and celebrating the history of the Mandé people of Mali, Guinea, and other West African countries. In addition to concerts, Tapani performs at weddings, baptisms, and other domestic ceremonies within the West African immigrant communities of Boston, New York City, and beyond. She will be accompanied by Balla Kouyaté on balaphon (forerunner of the xylophone) and Moussa Diabaté on ngoni (forerunner of the banjo).

The evening’s singing, music, and dance pay tribute to the rich musical heritage of Lowell’s Irish and African communities. The program is part of the recently launched Lowell Folklife Series sponsored by  Lowell National Historical Park.

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Ever since the industrialization and mechanization of labor, there has been less need for the singing of work chants. But back in the day, a special kind of singing helped work get done, whether it was sea chanties used to raise sails, Scottish waulking songs used to work wool, or agricultural work chants to hoe cotton or cut timber. In the deep south, such work chants were common among African Americans who labored under extremely harsh conditions. A good song was like a labor saving device. Singing work chants helped coordinate movements and build on collective strength. They also ensured safety for railroad gangs working in small crews with heavyand sharp tools. And, perhaps more importantly, these chants uplifted the men’s spirits.

One man, known as the caller, would stand aside from the crew and sing verbal instructions. His commands were answered by the men’s lining bars wrapping in rhythm against the railroad track– in a call and response manner. I came to know this tradition (or what remained of it in the minds of retired railroad workers) first hand while doing field research for the Alabama State Council on the Arts in the late 1980s. We interviewed half a dozen former track laborers and eventually produced the film Gandy Dancers, which tells the story of African American railroad workers who made their living building and maintaining the railroad lines that crisscross the American South.

I recently uncovered a connection between the southern African American tradition of call-and-response works songs and military cadence calls used in drill training, popularly known as “Jody calls.” Anyone who has gone through basic training is familiar with these military cadence calls. A drill instructor, whose job it is to keep recruits in step while training, calls out marching orders. Cadence calls motivate, while ensuring unit cohesion and promoting military discipline. Safety is a factor as well, especially while marching or running in close formation. Similar to the railroad workers’ calls, military cadence calls are also a way to take one’s mind off strenuous tasks, vent dissatisfaction, mock one’s superiors, or build morale by boasting, poking  fun, or talking dirty. As verbal art forms, both have a rich tradition.

Popular legend holds that that Private Willie Lee Duckworth Sr. (1924-2004) made up “Sound Off”, a.k.a., the “Duckworth Chant,” which is used to this day in the U.S.Army and other branches of the military.  The year was 1944 and Duckworth was stationed at Fort Slocum, New York as one of eight “Colored Infantrymen.”

Duckworth, who was born in 1924 in Washington County, Georgia, would have been familiar with the use of work chants sung for all kinds of agricultural work. He was also the same generation of the gandy dancers who used chants to line track. At the time he was drafted to serve in WW II, Duckworth was working in a sawmill. He was sent to a provisional training center in Fort Slocum, N.Y., in March 1944. As the story goes, Duckwork, on orders from a non-commissioned officer, improvised his own drill for the soldiers in his unit. Soon after, all the ranks were buzzing and keeping rhythm. Col. Bernard Lentz, who was the base commander at the Fort, approached Duckworth and asked where he developed his unique chant. “I told him it came from calling hogs back home,” Duckworth said. “I was scared, and that was the only thing I could think of to say.”

Colonel Bernard Lentz was so convinced of the cadence calls’ effectiveness that he made them standard at Fort Slocum and went on to write a drill instruction manual.  The “Duckworth Chant” was popularized in 1945 when the US government included it with other popular music of the day on a V-disc (12 inch vinyl 78 recording) for distribution to US military personnel overseas. The chant later gained fame as “Sound Off” and remains one of the most popular marching cadences in Army history.

Join us at a free public program on February 27 at Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center. In addition to screening the documentary Gandy Dancers, we will play the original recording of the “Duckworth Chant,” screen contemporary examples of cadence calls, and present a live demonstration by a military drill sergeant.

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Great weather and great programming! We suggest heading down to New Bedford this weekend for the Working Waterfront Festival. If you haven’t guessed, this year’s theme is surf and turf. In promoting the festival, organizers point out that “Fishermen and farmers share a deep knowledge of, reverence for and dependence upon the natural world. Both groups pass traditional skills and knowledge from one generation to the next, often incorporating new technologies alongside traditional practices. And both communities face many of the same economic, environmental and political challenges.”

In addition to live maritime and ethnic music, there will be an open air market featuring local produce and fresh seafood and cooking demonstrations, occupational demonstrations of fishing and farming skills, tours of fishing boats, author readings, and kid’s activities.

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Roy Burdick started auctioneering over 30 years ago and has been bid chanting ever since. Listen to him reveal some of the auctioneer’s tricks of the trade (4 MB). Here he is in action at “Old Home Days” in Rowe, Massachusetts.

Roy Burdick will be one of the performing artists at our upcoming concert, Keepers of Tradition: In Performance, at the National Heritage Museum, Saturday October 4th.

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