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The Young Man From Canada: BC Songs from the PJ Thomas Collection
This CD features the collecting work of Phil Thomas, a folklorist deeply attached to the historical and cultural roots of his native province. The PJ Thomas Collection, now housed in the Provincial Sound Archives, comprises the material he himself collected between 1954 and 1975. Some of the material saw print in the publication of Songs of the Pacific Northwest (Saanichton: Hancock House Publishers, 1979) and more was released on his LP, "Where the Fraser River Flows"; (1980).
The European development of BC occurred very late in the history of traditional folk music, and much of the material Thomas collected was not at first glance folk music at all. Where were the Child ballads and the love lyrics, so ubiquitous in the eastern provinces? In their place, Thomas presented a mélange of Tin Pan Alley and hymn tunes, with textual reworkings from the same sources, often so full of technical talk (see "Taku Miners";) as to be all but incomprehensible.
But what Thomas showed in his collection was that the history of folk song in this most westernmost province was a history of struggle: the struggle to harvest and mine the natural resources (fish, timber, coal and metals), the struggle between the early capitalists and their work forces, and the struggle with the landform itself, allowing such easy access from the south and resisting it from the east.
That this material was "folk song"; was not quickly accepted, and Thomas argued that the same characteristics (anonymity, wide dispersal, variant texts) are found both in traditional "folk song"; and in the songs he himself collected in BC. He looked to the functional reasons for these characteristics: a work force that was mobile, that was more attuned (because of its mobility) to industrial organization than what the Wobblies called the "home guard";, and that was familiar with the world of commercial song. It was natural that they should themselves remake these songs to speak of new conditions.
The songs in his collection are in the main from logging camps, from fishermen and from the constantly roaming hard rock miners, men who until just yesterday formed the overwhelming majority of the male working population. To these categories might be added songs of transportation-of railways, tugboats and wagon roads-songs of the armed forces (mostly rude squibs about military conditions) and songs made by Wobblies (the BC name for the Industrial Workers of the World, a union/party made by and for those who did not fit the polite labour unionism of the time). The songs he collected are overwhelmingly male-made and -sung. If there was ever a body of material made by women of their equally hard but much more lonely work, Thomas never found it.
Thomas himself led three very rewarding and interesting careers: as an art teacher, dedicated to the notion that art was something for the masses, not the classes, and the first President of the BC Art Teachers Association: as a collector, now the Honourary President of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music; and as a creative singer and musician, who in 1959 was one of the founders of the Vancouver Folk Song Society, the oldest such society in Canada and one of the oldest in north America. His insistence that BC's heritage of folk song should not simply moulder on paper in books and archives, that it is a living and creative force, and an expression not simply of the province's past but also of its present, has animated many singers, not least the two who, under his guidance and with his blessing, made in 1980 the radio series titled "Songs and Stories of Canada";, sixteen half-hour shows for schools, from which the songs on this CD are drawn. We hope that we have done the songs justice. -- Jon Bartlett/Rika Ruebsaat
The European development of BC occurred very late in the history of traditional folk music, and much of the material Thomas collected was not at first glance folk music at all. Where were the Child ballads and the love lyrics, so ubiquitous in the eastern provinces? In their place, Thomas presented a mélange of Tin Pan Alley and hymn tunes, with textual reworkings from the same sources, often so full of technical talk (see "Taku Miners";) as to be all but incomprehensible.
But what Thomas showed in his collection was that the history of folk song in this most westernmost province was a history of struggle: the struggle to harvest and mine the natural resources (fish, timber, coal and metals), the struggle between the early capitalists and their work forces, and the struggle with the landform itself, allowing such easy access from the south and resisting it from the east.
That this material was "folk song"; was not quickly accepted, and Thomas argued that the same characteristics (anonymity, wide dispersal, variant texts) are found both in traditional "folk song"; and in the songs he himself collected in BC. He looked to the functional reasons for these characteristics: a work force that was mobile, that was more attuned (because of its mobility) to industrial organization than what the Wobblies called the "home guard";, and that was familiar with the world of commercial song. It was natural that they should themselves remake these songs to speak of new conditions.
The songs in his collection are in the main from logging camps, from fishermen and from the constantly roaming hard rock miners, men who until just yesterday formed the overwhelming majority of the male working population. To these categories might be added songs of transportation-of railways, tugboats and wagon roads-songs of the armed forces (mostly rude squibs about military conditions) and songs made by Wobblies (the BC name for the Industrial Workers of the World, a union/party made by and for those who did not fit the polite labour unionism of the time). The songs he collected are overwhelmingly male-made and -sung. If there was ever a body of material made by women of their equally hard but much more lonely work, Thomas never found it.
Thomas himself led three very rewarding and interesting careers: as an art teacher, dedicated to the notion that art was something for the masses, not the classes, and the first President of the BC Art Teachers Association: as a collector, now the Honourary President of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music; and as a creative singer and musician, who in 1959 was one of the founders of the Vancouver Folk Song Society, the oldest such society in Canada and one of the oldest in north America. His insistence that BC's heritage of folk song should not simply moulder on paper in books and archives, that it is a living and creative force, and an expression not simply of the province's past but also of its present, has animated many singers, not least the two who, under his guidance and with his blessing, made in 1980 the radio series titled "Songs and Stories of Canada";, sixteen half-hour shows for schools, from which the songs on this CD are drawn. We hope that we have done the songs justice. -- Jon Bartlett/Rika Ruebsaat
Submitted on October 31, 2003 in By David.
