[Magdalen] RIP Fred Hellerman, 89.

[Joseph Cirou]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com>
>Sent: Sep 3, 2016 11:26 AM
>To: "magdalen at herberthouse.org" <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
>Subject: Re: [Magdalen] RIP Fred Hellerman, 89.
>
>One of the earliest songs I remember on the radio is "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena".
>I didn't know it was The Weavers until much later.
>
>On Sat, Sep 3, 2016 at 10:48 AM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>> I cast my mind back a long, long way, to age perhaps + or minus 9 years
>> old (was born in 1938) when I was at boarding school in the Eastern
>> Townships of Quebec.  My best friend, Helen Weissman, and I used to sing
>> Goodnight Irene.  What I can't figure out is how or where I ever could have
>> heard it enough to learn it, likewise the Anniversary Song.
>>
>> As I remember Helen's story, she was Polish and Jewish and somehow ended
>> up in Stockholm after her parents had been killed. She was in the care of
>> her uncle, Irving Kalb, who was a toy manufacturer and lived at 45 Falmouth
>> St. in Brooklyn, New York. How on earth he came to send her to St. Helen's,
>> a little Anglican boarding school in rural Quebec, I can't imagine.
>>
>> Marion, a pilgrim
>>
>>
>>   On 9/2/2016 9:54 PM, M J _Mike_ Logsdon wrote:
>>
>>> Member of The Weavers.  God rest the soul of yet another Great One.
>>>
>>> *****
>>>
>>> Fred Hellerman, member of Weavers folk group, dies at 89
>>> >From Associated Press
>>> September 02, 2016 7:54 PM EST
>>>
>>> WESTON, Conn. (AP) — Fred Hellerman, a founding member of the influential
>>> folk music quartet the Weavers, has died. He was 89.
>>>
>>> Hellerman died Thursday at his home in Weston, Connecticut, after a
>>> lengthy illness, his son, Caleb Hellerman, said Friday.
>>>
>>> The Weavers were formed in the late 1940s by Hellerman along with Pete
>>> Seeger, Lee Hays and Ronnie Gilbert. They helped to popularize folk music
>>> in the United States with recordings including "Goodnight Irene" and "On
>>> Top of Old Smoky." The group disbanded after they were black-listed by
>>> anti-Communists in the early 1950s, but performed again into the 1960s and
>>> then at a reunion concert at Carnegie Hall in 1980.
>>>
>>> Hellerman also produced Arlo Guthire's 1967 record, "Alice's Restaurant,"
>>> and worked with several artists over his career as a composer, arranger and
>>> songwriter.
>>>
>>> Hellerman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and his first displayed his
>>> love for music by collaborating on stage plays in the Yiddish theater, his
>>> son said. He learned to play guitar while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard
>>> and teamed up with the other musicians while living in New York City's
>>> Greenwich Village.
>>>
>>> He moved to Weston in 1969, installing a recording studio in the home
>>> that would often be visited by Seeger and other artists.
>>> .
>>>
>>>I am a little younger than Marion, but I have known both those songs without knowing about the Weavers until much later. Good Night Irene  must have been on the radio a lot,because my Aunt always listed to the radio in the kitchen--Arthur Godfrey before leaving for her 3 to 11 nurse's shift at nearby St. George's Hospital. I knew the  Anniversary Song because it was always part of the parent's wedding anniversary celebration. We had the sheet music on the piano and it was always part of every July 16th celebration from my childhood. We are a fairly musical family; so I think having my aunt in the family who played the piano and regularly bought sheet music had a lot to do with my familiarity with these songs. Her older Sister Sr Agnes of St Dominic SNJM was my first music teacher. My mother used to be the lead chanter at Sung Vespers at St John Baptist and even my father had played the trombone in the band and was the product of regular musical education in the schools even if he was not a professional musician. I think it is a different generation. 

when Iwas at St. Florian Hegewisch, we had a group of people that put on a yearly show. None of them was a musician, most could not read music, but they could sing and pick up a tune. They were also the products of a school system that taught music in the school and it showed.
I directed some of the shows, my main contribution was helping them avoid the more common vocal bad habits. 

Joe
>>