| Coming up with a three-CD set purporting to distill the tremendously rich and complex folk music tradition of the Land of Lincoln is a task that would overawe almost any historical musicologist.However it is just this rich loaf of musical bread that former Ashland resident and songsmith Bucky Halker slices into with zest and skill.
Halker, a masterful singer and songwriter in his own right, serves as a senior program officer at the Illinois Humanities Council. Six years ago he set about the daunting task of listening to over 3,000 folk songs from the Illinois country, beginning to cull that number down to 60 songs.Last month those efforts bore fruit with the release of “Folk Songs of Illinois,” volumes one and two. Volume 3 is due for release in October.
Halker, who grew up in Ashland, learned to play guitar and gigged with teen bands here before heading off to college. He eventually got a Masters Degree and a Ph.D. in labor history from the University of Minnesota.
Troubadour and professor, Bucky has led a varied existence, as college professor and performing with “The Remainders,” an eclectic Chicago bar band. He has also made several solo albums that include acoustic, bluesy and personal songs. He is also known for his session work, engaging in a series of projects including contributions to “Ella Jenkins and a Union of Friends” which earned a Grammy nomination.
An author as well, Halker has written a groundbreaking book, “For Democracy, Workers and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest,” hailed as a pioneering assessment of the songs of a tumultuous era in American history and a major contribution to working class cultural studies.
Halker has become recognized as an artist with an intimate understanding of many diverse musical styles; one whose own music is deeply influenced by the richness of this Midwest melting pot. There is a natural progression from his own groundbreaking work to the development of a trilogy of CDs that spotlights the folk heritage of Illinois.
“It’s something that developed after years of playing all over Illinois. This is a region that is rich in music, with people from all over the world,” said Halker. “They all bring their own musical traditions with them.”
So in a state nestled between the Wabash and the Mississippi, one can find bluegrass and gospel, country blues and string band cheek by jowl with Scandinavian waltzes and Serbo-Croatian kolos, Polish polkas and Mexican corridos.
It is an extraordinary mix of music of the people. It is also a heritage that was incredibly difficult to distill down to the fine essence reflecting the character of Illinois.
“If I had known what I was getting into when I started this I might not have done it,” Halker admits.
Part of this difficult assignment was just finding the original artists or heirs of the long-silent songs, in order to secure rights to the reissue their performances. Many of the artists were long dead. In one case, Halker could not find any surviving relatives of Henry Spaulding, an old bluesman. At last, a company in Austria claimed to own the rights to the song in question, “Cairo Blues,” but Halker flatly refused to pay out on the dubious royalty claim.
“There is no way I am going to pay money to some white guy in Austria for a song written by a black man in Illinois,” he said.
On the other hand, Halker was able to track down the elderly female survivor of another group’s song. Even though there appeared to be no legally binding copyright, he agreed to pay her a modest sum of a few hundred dollars.
“It’s what was right, and she was in real need of that money,” he said.
The music selected for the collections are all performed by Illinois musicians, and include selections drawn from new studio recordings, archival collections, 78s, LPs and CDs, as well as home and field recordings made by folklorists, amateur scholars and family members.
Halker said a wealth of song remains to be resurrected for new generations.
“I had to set an arbitrary cutoff date of about 1955 or so. I think I would like to see additional CDs to cover the modern era,” he said.
Nor does he think Illinois is the only state that could provide fodder for such a collection, noting that Wisconsin too has a rich heritage of folk music that remains buried in archives, personal and university collections.
“There is an extraordinary wealth of material that is out there, just waiting to be rediscovered,” he said.
“Folk Songs of Illinois” is produced by the Illinois Humanities Council, and was made possible in part by the “We the People” Initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The three CD set is being distributed by the University of Illinois Press. For telephone orders call 1-800-621-2736. It is available online at www.press.uillinois.edu. |
