Living in the Country - Part I

Every time I heard Living in the Country I said to myself, I must dig out that unique recording I have of Living in the Country, the one with that powerful, rhythmic, bluesy introduction that dramatically shifts into the light-aired melody everyone is familiar with. The one that Pete Seeger attributed to Huddie Ledbetter, that I recorded off the WQXR radio show, Folk Music of the World, programmed by Robert Sherman, in the late 1960s. It was the first time I heard it, and it became my aspiration, my obsession. I had to learn how to play it on the guitar. I even bought a 12-string. I listened to that tape repeatedly in high school and college, and then stored it away. And although I have heard many performances and recordings of Living in the Country by many artists, none of them approach that first one I heard by Pete Seeger. And although I said many times I should retrieve that tape, I never found the time.


A few years ago, my sister asked if I wanted my father’s old Wollensak 7" reel-to-reel tape recorder. I said yes, anticipating that I would use it to play back that old recording. After all, it was the machine I had used to record that radio show in the first place. But the old Wollensak just laid there, gathering dust. I didn't even know if it still worked.

When Pete Seeger died I could put it off no longer.  I looked for those old 7" reel-to-reel tapes – in my old storage crate in the attic, in my cartons of old books, in my box of high-school treasures. Not there. I gave up. And then, days later,  I spotted them on the book shelf above my desk. I had retrieved them some years ago and placed them there – so they would be handy.

I opened the old Wollensak and cleaned off four decades of grime, only to find there was no take-up reel.  It took me a few days before I set about finding one on eBay: $3.00 (plus $5.94 for shipping) from a seller in Orlando, Florida. Then I had to wait several days for the auction to close, and more until finally the package arrived. But I had found not one but two of my old 7" reel-to-reel tapes and it would likely take hours to find that particular recording. I was too busy. 

I don't know what inspired me today to drop everything and listen to those recordings. And I got lucky – Living in the Country was one of the first recordings on the first side of the first reel. I was pleased.

I retrieved my bag of audio cables and adapters from the basement, a carry over from my college days when I thought myself knowledgeable in such matters. I connected the Wollensak's outputs to my computer's inputs in every conceivable configuration, to no avail. Audacity recorded hums and buzzes. Watching the afternoon tick by, I gave up and held a microphone in front of the Wollensak, a reversal of the process I had used to record the radio show (using a microphone in front of the radio speaker) some 45 years ago.

The quality of the recording is poor, but still conveys the essence of this unique arrangement.

The host of the radio show provides a brief introduction to these two versions of Living in the Country.  The first version is from a London recording made in 1959. I searched the web but was unable to find a better quality version. (See update below).  It starts with Pete Seeger talking about Huddie Ledbetter and he seems to attribute Living in the Country to him. Indeed, “Living in the Country” is likely a reference to "Goodnight Irene," Lead Belly's #1 hit song of 1950, that has the line, "“Sometimes I live in the country/ Sometimes I live in the town/ Sometimes I have the great notion/ Of jumpin’ into the river and drown.“  It is unlike any other recording of Living in the Country, starting with a powerful, rhythmic, blues section that breaks into the lighter melody with which we are so familiar. The second version is the well-known “whistling” version that appears in numerous recordings by Pete Seeger and other artists.

You can listen to my recording of Living in the Country from the Folk Music of the World radio show here.

But that's not quite the end of the story. You see, I've been trying to find the lyrics to Living in the Country for as long as I've been trying to play it on the 12-string. I thought I saw the lyrics printed in an issue of Sing Out! magazine, but the lyrics did not turn up in a search of it's archives. To the best of my recollection, here they are.

Living in the Country

I'm living way out in the country
I rarely come into the town.
It's always so lovely, delightful,
I wish that you would come around.

Oh, please, won't you come away with me.
We'd be so happy living in the country.

Work all day,
Laugh and play,
Sing this song to you.

Perhaps I will retrieve my old 12-string from the attic.

Update June 19, 2019

I recently found Pete Seegers 1959 recording, I Knew Leadbelly which was recently re-released, as described here.

“Goodnight, Pete, I'll see you in my dreams”*

I wrote to Pete Seeger in 1969, inviting him to perform at our Earth Day celebration at Cornell University, the first one, to be held on April 22, 1970. He wrote back, saying he couldn't come because "I am up to my ears in projects which I have started on and have not finished ..." (He added, "There is another singer from the Hudson River Sloop who I believe would be very good ... Don McLean ... He is an extraordinarily talented young fellow who within a year or two is going to become very famous." He was right. Don McLean's American Pie was a number 1 hit song in 1972 and the number 5 Song of the Century.)

Pete ended up singing at the Washington, D.C. celebration of Earth Day, but he did give a concert for us at Cornell.  One of my friends, also a Pete Seeger fan – and an automobile enthusiast, was eager to find out what kind of car he was driving. He was disappointed when Pete called from the Ithaca bus station asking if someone could pick him up and give him a ride to the campus. When Pete found out that his concert at Bailey Hall was sold out, he offered to give a free performance afterwards. We had to scramble to find a sound system that we could use outdoors.

While Pete Seeger was best known for his songs and music, he was also a great storyteller. Telling a story to introduce or reflect on a song is part of the folk music tradition, and the stories were a good part of what attracted me to folk music (although aspiring to play Pete Seeger's guitar instrumental, Living in the Country, was a big attraction too).  Here is one of his many stories that has stuck with me, from “Seek and Ye Shall Find,” on his album, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy and Other Love Songs. It’s no coincidence that in 1974 I named my publishing company This Too Shall Pass Press.

The King and His Wise Men

There was once a king in the olden days. He had three sons and he wanted to give them a good education. He called in his wise men, he said I wish you’d boil down all the world’s wisdom into one book that I’m going to give my sons and have them learn it. So the wise men went away, took them a whole year, and they came back with a beautiful leather-bound volume, trimmed in gold. The king leafed through it. “Hmm. Very good. Yes, this is it.” He gives it to his sons, and said, “Okay, learn it!”

Then he turned to the wise men and he said, “You know, you did such a good job with that, I wonder if you couldn’t boil down all the world’s wisdom into one sentence. Well, the wise men went away, it took them five years. They came back, their beards must have been dragging on the ground, and they said, “Your majesty, we’ve decided upon a sentence. “What is it,” says the king. “This too shall pass.”

I guess the king didn’t have anything better to do with his wise men. He said, I wonder if you couldn’t boil down all the world’s wisdom into one word. The poor men must have groaned. They went away. It took them ten years. When they came back they were all bent over. The king said, “Oh yes, what was that word?” He’d forgotten all about his little whim. They said, “Your majesty, the one word is: maybe.”

As I mourn his death and reflect on his life, I am pondering, "this too shall pass." And too, I am recalling his words from that letter he sent me in 1970, "I am up to my ears in projects which I have started on and have not finished ..." There is so much more to do, Pete, and you have done your part.

 “Goodnight Pete, Goodnight Pete, I'll see you in my dreams”*

* This line is adapted from Pete Seeger's first best seller, recorded by The Weavers, Goodnight Irene, which repeats the line, "Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene, I'll see you in my dreams." I heard it this morning on WAMC radio as the closing line of one of the listeners who called in and thought it was a great tribute.

Same and Different: The Never-Ending Story of Chanukah

My given name is Sandor, which is derived from Alexander, and I am named after Alexander the Great. You should ask, why was a nice Jewish boy from New York named after Alexander the Great? …


For the rest of the story, told live at Sharing the Fire: The Northeast Storytelling Conference:

Happy Chanukah!

Stop Action Storytelling

 I began my story …

I never knew who this guy was, but even before the meeting started he sought me out. Undoubtedly he had just arrived from the airport for this big meeting we were running for the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the Great Flood of '93, when the Mississippi overflowed its banks for months. He walked right up to me, a mass of curly black hair, green-canvas backpack slung over one shoulder. He extended his hand, not to shake mine, but to push a computer disk in my face. “This is my recommendation,” he said, “I need to print this out.”

… and then I stopped. I asked the group, “What would you do, and why?”

“Stop Action Storytelling” is a technique I use in training workshops. I tell a story that is pertinent to the subject matter – a true story or a composite of true stories in which I was involved, often with names and places changed. At a critical point in the story, where I or someone else in the story had to make a decision – to choose one action or another – I interrupt the story and ask the group, “What would you do, and why?”

Typically a number of people respond, describing the action they would take and their rationale. Each response can spawn a group discussion to explore the underlying reasoning and alternative actions that could be taken. Afterwards, I continue with the story, explaining what I actually did and why I did it, and – too often – what I wish I had done instead. The intent is not to find the single best answer, or even to agree on what should have been done, but rather to explore the underlying reasons – the values and principles that guide us – and the repertoire of actions that might be used to enact them.

The approach is based on the Critical Incident Technique. I first used this approach at the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) conference in 2000 in a session entitled, “Critical incidents: How do our values and principles guide us?” This well-attended session led to the creation of the Ethics and Values Task Force that developed IAF's Statement of Values and Code of Ethics for Group Facilitators.

Many of the stories I use in Stop Action Storytelling have multiple stopping points. For examples, here are two stories I have used in workshops for group facilitators: The Meaning of Wilderness and The Unaccustomed Participant.

A version of this article appeared in The Story Cookbook: Practical Recipes for Change, A. Rixon and C. Lloyd, eds. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. (2019).

Sources

Flanagan, John C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 4, 327-358.

The Jewish Grimm

Dov Noy z"l founded the Israel Folktale Archives in 1955, resulting in today's collection of nearly 25,000 folktales from 70 Jewish and non Jewish ethnic groups. His contributions to the study of folklore – Jewish folklore in particular – are astounding, extending beyond the more than 60 books he wrote and edited (the muti-volume Folktales of the Jews, Folktales of Israel, and many others). He influenced countless students, storytellers, listeners and readers over his career. He died September 29, 2013 at age 92.

An example of his insights into Jewish folktales can be found in his essay, “What is Jewish About the Jewish Folktale,” that is the forward to Howard Schwartz's book, Miriam's Tambourine. My one-sentence summary in What is a Jewish Story does not do it justice. Another example, his analysis of the Angel of Death in Jewish Folklore, was excerpted in Jewish Heritage Online Magazine.

His obituary in The Jewish Daily Forward and on the Jewish Studies Network/ H-Judaic email list provide more details of his storied career.

The Goldarndest Liar: Bill Greenfield

When I heard my first story about Bill Greenfield, “the goldarndest liar,” my fascination with tall tales turned into a decades-long quest. Was he a made-up character like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill? Or was he a real person from upstate New York? Here is my introduction to “Bill Greenfield, The Goldarndest Liar,” which appeared on Story by Story, the TV program hosted by Kate Dudding and Joe Doolittle.

Sam’s Saxophone

The Hamilton Hill Arts Center needs musical instruments for its new jazz band. It’s a good cause, serving inner-city youth. Joe Doolittle’s inspired story  about Hamilton Hill* motivated me to give them my son’s saxophone. We bought it for him fifteen years ago, and his interest in the instrument long since faded. I asked my son, Sam, if it was OK to donate it. Without hesitation he said yes.

As I readied the saxophone, I contemplated Joe’s story. I thought, one good story deserves another. In exchange for Joe’s excellent story I would send him another in return. But as I thought about that story I began to have second thoughts about parting with this saxophone.

* * * * *

Five-year old Sam was already settled into bed – half covered by his quilt, thumb in his mouth, blanket pressed to his cheek. Anna, sitting on her bed as usual, was not wanting to have to go to bed quite yet.

I walked across the room to tuck them in and noticed, in the middle of the floor, my father’s old trumpet case. Sam had apparently pulled it out from underneath the bed. I had just been helping his older brother Ben practice his piano, and I thought perhaps Sam was feeling a bit jealous.

I knelt next to his bed and leaned close to him. “Sam,” I asked quietly, “would you like to learn to play an instrument?” He nodded sleepily, cozy in bed, at one with his thumb and blanket. “What kind of instrument would you like to learn,” I asked, fully expecting him to say “the trumpet.”

“The saxophone …”, he said, and I recalled hearing him say this once before, but tonight it struck a familiar chord, “… and the trumpet.”

Wanting to explore this further, I presented the dilemma. If you could learn to play only one, the saxophone or the trumpet, which would it be?”

He removed his thumb from his mouth to think for a moment and rolled over to look up at the ceiling. “Both,” he said, with the resolve that he had solved the logical requirements of the question.

“Settle into bed now,” I addressed myself more to Anna than to Sam and tucked her in, “and I will tell you a story. It’s a true story, not the kind you read in story books. It’s a story that I heard, and my sisters heard, when we were children, and maybe your cousins have heard it too. It’s a story that my father used to tell about when he was growing up.” Sam knows – I wonder if I remind him too often – that he is named after my father; and Anna knows that she is named after my mother.

I picked up the trumpet that Sam had taken out and, noticing how Sam and Anna’s eyes followed it, placed it carefully back in its well-worn, purple velvet-lined case, closed the hinged top, snapped in the clasps, and pushed it back under Sam’s bed.

“When my father was nineteen years old …” I started, and then interrupted myself. “Do you know how old nineteen is? How old is Ben? … He’s ten. Then you turn eleven, then twelve, and thirteen ...” Anna picked it up and counted with me. “... and then nineteen. When you’re nineteen, you’re in college, so you’re not all grown up yet, but you’re big.”

“Can you drive a car?” asked Sam, looking eager for the prospect.

“Yes, you’re allowed to drive a car if you have the money to pay for one. But when my father was nineteen he didn’t go to college.”

“Why?” asked Sam again. He asks why a lot.

“Because his family was poor and he couldn’t afford to go to college. He had to work,” I said. “He had learned to be an electrician. Electricity was a new thing then and people wanted to have electricity in their houses. But my father loved music. He wanted to write songs and play music. He didn’t have an instrument, though, and he didn’t have the money to buy one.” Sam and Anna were listening with unusual intensity. I continued.

“So he put an advertisement in the newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer. The advertisement said, ‘I will wire your house for electricity in exchange for a …’” I paused and pointed to prompt Sam. He filled in “‘… saxophone.’” “That’s how badly he wanted to have a saxophone, and that’s the only way he could think of to get one. He received only one response to his advertisement. But the man didn’t even have a saxophone, all he had was a …” again I paused and pointed to Sam. “… trumpet,” he filled in again with a smile of satisfaction. “Have you heard this story before?” I asked.

“No,” replied Sam.

“Then how do you know the answers?” I asked, not knowing what to expect for an answer.

“I can just tell from the way you’re saying it.”

I continued. “Well, the trumpet was the only offer he got, so he took it. That’s how it came to pass that my father studied the trumpet, and the trumpet became his instrument.”

“Is that it in the case there?” Sam asked.

“Yes, that was my father’s trumpet, Sam, but I think he bought a better one than that first one he got when he was nineteen.” We had many hugs and kisses then, cozy with endearing emotions. It’s hard to know what this story means to a boy of almost-six and a girl of just-turned-four. Harder to know what it will mean to them in 40 years.

I heard this story many times as a child, and I have thought about it and told it many times as an adult. I have always dwelt on the fateful, by-chance aspects of the story of how my father happened to play the trumpet, which became a big part of his life, the instrument he played until, at age 84, he died. But never, before this night, had I wondered why in the first place he wanted so much to play the saxophone!

There are so many questions I would like to ask him. Why, in all of his stories did he so rarely tell about his father and mother? How did he find the time, the energy, to write all those songs? Why did he bet on those particular lottery numbers? How did he pull through those hard times? Questions and more questions. Questions so dear I can’t write them down.

Now a new question: Why did he want to play the saxophone? I can’t ask my father, but I could ask my son, who bears his name. “Why,” I asked, wondering if he noticed the tear in my eye, “would you like to play the saxophone?”

He paused only briefly, his five-year old mischief grin mixing with his almost-six look of knowledgeability. He removed his thumb from his mouth just long enough to answer. “Because, it sounds cool.”

Would my father have given the same answer? I’ll never know. But how could I part with this saxophone? This saxophone that connects my son to my father and to this story? My father never took me aside and said, “Sandy, one day you'll want something really badly – it will be your heart's desire. But it won’t work out just the way you wanted. Make the best of whatever comes your way.” No, he never gave me that lecture, he just told me this story about a saxophone. How could I give it up?

But it’s a saxophone, a musical instrument – one that’s been locked in a box, silent, for years. Shouldn’t it be put to greater use? Shouldn’t an aspiring kid in Hamilton Hill have the opportunity to learn to play the instrument of his dreams, to create a new story?

So I will give it up. I will donate Sam’s saxophone to the Hamilton Hill Arts Center.

But I will keep the trumpet.

* “Old, new stories sneak up” by Alden “Joe” Doolittle, Times Union, Albany, New York, August 23, 2013, http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Old-new-stories-sneak-up-4756776.php