Let Memory Keep Us All: a songbook, and a remembrance

♦ The Triangle Jewish Chorale Songbook ♦ The TJC Hanukah Songbook ♦
♦ A Christmas Songbook: Three Log Night ♦
♦ The Laduvane Songbook: Balkan music ♦
♦ Let Memory Keep Us All: the Solstice Assembly Songbook ♦
♦ Songs Anyone Can Sing! Songs for Non-singers
How to publish your own book on Createspace or Lulu.com ♦

Please visit my songbook:
Let Memory Keep Us All: the Solstice Assembly Songbook at lulu.com

I thought the easiest way to introduce you to the book would be a brief description of the songs it contains, and where they come from. So, below, I've listed the songs and some information about them. If you'd like to know more, ask and I'll try to help.

Many of them are available for download as mp3s: the Solstice Assembly at Amazon.com (you can sample all of them for free), and are also available on real actual cds from Skylark Productions (which is actually just my attic).

Agincourt Carol

I heard this from the singing of Graeme and Eileen Pratt on their album Regal Slip (it's great). It was written in the early 15th century and tells of the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, in which the English army led by Henry V of England defeated the French.

An Equal Song

This is a combination of the Sacred Harp song "Poor Mourning Souls" and lyrics from another Sacred Harp song, both slightly, uh, reorganized.

Away with these self-loving lads

By lutenist John Dowland, from his 1597 First Booke of Songs or Ayres, arranged by me and Doug Holmgren (who played the sprightly harpsichord setting). "My songs they be of Cynthia's praise, I wear her rings on holidays, On every tree I write her name, and ev'ry day I read the same ... If Cynthia crave her ring of me, I'll blot her name out of the tree!" Somethings never change. You can hear it on the 1991 cd I did with Beth Holmgren, available for download from Amazon: Courting Disaster: Centuries of lovesongs. If you want the actual cd, go to the Skylark Productions website.

Ayo visto lo mappamundi

I heard this on the Waverly Consort's 1492: Music From The Age Of Discovery and was enchanted. "I have seen the map of the world... I've been everywhere ... but there's nobody as cute as my girlfriend Cecily." I arranged it for the Solstice Assembly and later did it with my world music band, and that's where we got our name!

Barrett's Privateers

I arranged this one, written by Stan Rogers and brought to me by Mark Biggers, for the kids chorus at the Emerson Waldorf School and later did it with the teen traveling camp at Village Harmony.

Brave Wolfe

This one is in many songbooks because it is so "historically significant." General James Wolfe triumphed at the battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec and it turned the course of the war.

Brightly Dawns our Wedding Day

Four of us from the Solstice Assembly sang this song at the Mikado for Ed Norman's wedding and I taught it at the Village Harmony Adult Camp a few years ago. I've always wanted to do it at another wedding but the words are a little strong for present-day brides: "All must sip the cup of sorrow, I to-day and thou to-morrow, this the close of every song. What, though solemn shadows fall - sooner, later - over all? Sing a merry madrigal!..."

Bundling Song

This one was an invention. When I was researching music of Colonial America for the Pratie Heads' North Carolina Arts Council Touring Program performances, I ran across the text in an old book. Now you can read the whole thing on line: A New Bundling Song, or, A Reproof To Those Young Country Women, Who Follow That Reproachful Practice, And To Their Mothers For Upholding Them Therein! I made up a tune and a harmony for it and pared it down mercilessly (the parson who wrote it had a bit of an obsession) and we sang it to the great amusement of all. My favorite couplet: "Bundlers' clothes are no defense - unruly horses push the fence!"

Cadgwith Anthem

We learned this one from Mark Biggers, who loved Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, and a quartet of us recorded it on the Solstice Assembly cd available as mp3 download: Under the Drawbridge: music from the 13th to the 20th century, or from http://skylark2.com

Ce mois de mai

Mitzi Quint brought us this one, a madrigal by Clement Janequin.

Claudy Banks

Ken Bloom gets us to sing this at his Revolutionary War reenactments. Another soldier comes back from war, unrecognized by his girlfriend, and tells her "Your boyfriend is dead" just to see her get upset. Then he says "Just Kidding!" If I were her I'd conk him over the head.

Come Here, Fellow Servant

Incredibly, Mappamundi got a gig at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles! Well, truth to tell, we were not IN the bowl, but in a little theater NEXT to the bowl, doing a week-long show for families on American History through music. The lady who hired us, Marnie, found this song and I tweaked it and re-arranged it quite a bit. The idea is, even the rich masters for whom the servants work are slaves to somebody or something. "The fat shining glutton looks up to his shelf, the wrinkled lean miser bows down to his pelf, and the churl-pated beau is a slave to himself" Vocabulary word I learned from this song, pelf: "Wealth or riches, especially when dishonestly acquired."

Come, Lasses and Lads

This was a bringing-together of the 1670 Playford English Country Dance tune, Epping Forest, with the text of a John Roberts and Tony Barrand song. I did it thinking of Jacqueline Schwab, the genius pianist with whom I was at the time about to make a cd with (and it's available for download at Amazon or for purchase at Skylark Productions).

Con el viento

Somebody in the Solstice Assembly heard Libana sing this song and I transcribed it as best I could. We recorded it on "Some Assembly Required" and you can also hear Libana sing it at YouTube

Daniel Prayed

A Red Clay Ramblers favorite which I also did quite a few times with the Triangle Jewish Chorale. Here's a similar (but all-men) arrangement sung by Joe Newberry, Jim Watson, Bill Hicks & Mike Craver at YouTube

Devotion

A Sacred Harp song.

Down with the Rosemary and Bays

Mark Biggers wanted to do this song. First I made a three part version and then a four-part version. Words by Robert Herrick, song is from William Henry Husk's 1868 Songs of the Nativity

Drive Dull Care Away (traditional version)

Mid-1970s, a folksinging circle in Cambridge sponsored by the Folksong Society of Greater Boston (ah, why don't we have one of those down here in North Carolina?). I heard this song and was riveted. That being pre-internet, I ended up having to make several phone calls (which I hate) and then drive 35 miles to grab this song from the guy who sang it. Now it's probably just a mouse-click away.

Drive Dull Care Away (my tune)

I love the lyrics so much that I wrote another setting and recorded it on Some Assembly Required.

Durme, durme

This gorgeous Sephardic song, sung in Laduvane, has been recorded many times, I first heard it on Judy Frankel's cd Stairway of Gold: Songs of the Sephardim. The Solstice Assembly sang my a cappella version for many years and the Triangle Jewish Chorale loved the song too.

Fine Knacks for Ladies

This is from John Dowland, too, and I wrote this arrangement when we were asked to do an Elizabethan gig - some of the songs we scrabbled together were a bit, uh, spurious, but this one was the real thing.

Fortune, My Foe

Supposedly Henry V wrote this, but I bet he just stole credit for it. Still happens in the music industry all the time.

"An all-seasons follow-up to Three Log Night, a regional Christmas favorite, Under the Drawbridge is an impressive introduction to the elegant, elastic vocal stylings of North Carolina's Solstice Assembly, an inventive 18- voice choral group that specializes in updating folk songs that span the last 800 years. These modern minstrels, favorites on the East Coast Renaissance festival circuit ... whether singing a cappella or accompanied by guitars, fiddles, percussion and recorders, showcase forceful harmonies with reverent relish and a youthful spirit. The alternately festive, romantic, and haunting arrangements mirror a variety of familiar vocal settings, including madrigal choruses, barbershop quartets, even such peers as the Bobs and the Roches... The most lasting pleasures ... are the older songs, all performed with an earnest affection that accents their beauty rather than their age."

Furry Day Carol

I learned this one from Dave DiGiuseppe, friend of the Nee Ningy band, former member of the Band of Ages, the Banished Fools, the Big Zucchini Washboard Bandits, and a Mayday organizer. We did a Mayday concert with him and sang this song.

Gaude Mater Polonia

Ed Norman learned this one in high school. Wikipedia says: "It was probably the most popular medieval Polish hymn, written in the 13th-14th century in memory of saint Stanis?aw Szczepanowski, bishop of Kraków. Polish knights used to sing it after victory in battle."

Give Me the Roses

I learned this one from Mike Craver of the Red Clay Ramblers and wrote this arrangement for us to perform at a musical lecture Jack Bernhard gave at the Ulster-American Park when a bunch of us went over to Northern Ireland to sing Sacred Harp at their bluegrass festival!

Golly

I ordinarily fear rounds - I always wonder, "what if it never stops?" - but this one, by P.D.Q. Bach I think, tickled my fancy.

Good in Living

Stacey Anderegg was the one who brought us this song, I think.

Hard Times, Come Again No More

Somebody asked us to learn this Stephen Foster song. The Red Clay Ramblers used to do a wonderful version of it but their arrangement wouldn't work for mixed mens and womens voices so I wrote one for us.

Haymaking

Mark Biggers and Randy Kloko sang this song, which we learned from John Roberts and Tony Barrand.

Hock Cart

I sort of wrassled this one together out of a fragment of a medieval melody which I pushed and prodded until it wasn't really recognizable, and added an Elizabethan text.

How Stands the Glass Around?

Bob and I learned for Early American gigs and then I arranged it for chorus. The song was collected from the notebook of Thomas Fanning, 1780. It was General Wolfe's favorite song.

Imi Nahtna Leviva-Li

One of the first Hannukah songs we learned for the Solstice Extravaganza.

In Sherwood Lived Stout Robin Hood

Another one learned for a Renaissance Fair. By Robert Jones, 1609

It Was a Lover and his Lass

This is one of several songs I concocted for an Elizabethan evening. The text, of course, is by Shakespeare. The tune was kludged together out of a Welsh folksong I'd mostly forgotten.

Let Memory Keep Us All

The song that inspired this lens.

Let Us Drink and be Merry

A round I learned from the singing of Suzy Liebert, a long-ago roommate.

Love Is Come Again

From the Oxford Book of Carols. One verse was written by our tenor Ben Bingham.

Margot Labourez les Vignes

Alice Kaplan, Professor of French Literature at Duke and one of our sopranos, helped with the words of this song, which I'd known since highschool. It was originally a folksong but was turned into a madrigal by Jacob Arcadelt (or was it Orlando di Lasso?)

Northfield

One of everybody's favorite Sacred Harp songs. Words: Isaac Watts, 1701; music: Jeremiah Ingalls, 1800

Northill May

Perhaps I heard the Watersons do this on a long-ago LP, or maybe it was the Young Tradition?

O My Hart

Henry VIII claimed the authorship of this one. Yeah, right. See Henry V, above.

Ode to the Fourth of July

Written in 1803 by Walter Townsend, arranged by me for some Rev War reenactment.

Once I Had a Sweetheart

Mona Shibers brought us this song. I first heard her sing it when about twelve of us were packed into a Motel 6 room in Greensboro. In the morning we stumbled out of our couple of rooms, dressed in jerkins and bodkins and henins and tights for the Medieval Fair, to the astonishment of the truckers who are the usual inhabitants.

Pace-egging Song

Learned from Dave DiGiuseppe for a Maying sort of event. What wonderful Mayday celebrations they used to have out at the farm, with a really really TALL Maypole and beautifully hand-died ribbons and sometimes I'd play with the little band and watch people weave in and out...

Parting Glass

Bob Vasile of the Pratie Heads and I learned this for our dear mentor and friend Carl Wittman when he was dying. Recently I spruced it up and presented it at a Village Harmony camp.

Peculiar Cheer

I can't at all remember where I heard this. I think it's a twelfth-night song. Did I invent it? Did it come from a dream? If you've heard it before, please put me out of my misery and tell me where it came from!

Peddler's Song

This is an Elizabethan text and a tune I think I invented. We recorded it on Some Assembly Required.

Pretty Maid Come Along

Jon Newlin brought us this song, short and sweet.

Rainbow

A classic but rarely heard shape-note hymn.

Resonet in laudibus

I learned this from Pat Peterson and the singing of her group Fortuna, which used to perform in our annual Solstice Extravaganzas.

Rich Man

I just love this song, which I found in an Ingalls songbook.

Ripe and Bearded Barley

I learned this mysterious English folksong from Larry Gordon.

Rolling Ages

Here you have it: the entire destruction of the world as we know it in four short verses. An old shape-note type hymn, written before the four shapes were invented.

Roulez!

I loved William Pint & Felicia Dale's version of this and gussied it up for the Solstice Assembly to sing with the Band of Ages. We recorded it on Some Assembly Required.

Shnirele Perele

First heard at KlezKamp in the early 1980s.

Sigh No More, Ladies

Shakespeare's words, my tune and arrangement, last verse by Randy Kloko.

Silent Bird

I found this Irish song in a book and harmonized it. Judy Stafford wrote the third verse.

So Will We Yet

Learned from the singing of the brilliant and sorely missed Tony Cuffe.

Solis Praevia

Learned from a cd of Bohemian or Moravian early music.

Sweet Kate

Learned from John Newlin for our Elizabethan gigs. By Robert Jones c. 1600

There is a Lady Sweet and Kind

From Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds of 1607.

This Old World

I heard this from the singing of Graeme and Eileen Pratt and friends sang this on their wonderful album Regal Slip.

To Portsmouth!

A nice round for the pub.

Touch But My Lips

Of the songs I've written, this is my favorite. Words from Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.

Turtledove Done Drooped His Wings

A Georgia Sea Island song. I think I first heard Larry Gordon and the Word of Mouth chorus do it.

Vegan Fight Song

We had been performing "This Aye Nicht," a medieval song, using something close to the Young Tradition arrangement, for a while when Lisa Pickel showed up with these alternate words.

Whitsuntide is Come

I think I learned this from John Roberts and Tony Barrand, except there are three parts and there are only two of them, so maybe not.