Information/Write-up
DIANE OXNER
Miss Diane Oxner is one of Nova Scotia’s best-known singers. Born of the famous historical, seafaring families of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Miss Oxner studied voice at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia.
She made her debut in Halifax, singing the soprano lead in the opera “The Bohemian Girl.”
Miss Oxner has sung with the Halifax Symphony Orchestra and with other groups during the past two years. She has also recorded for radio and television for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Miss Oxner now teaches voice at the New Brunswick Academy of Music in Saint John. She is also soprano soloist at Trinity Anglican Church in that city.
These recordings represent Miss Oxner’s first foray into the folk song tradition of Nova Scotia. Her fresh, clear soprano voice lends itself beautifully to the simplicity and strength of the folk idiom.
HELEN CREIGHTON
Rodeo Records took this opportunity of thanking Miss Helen Creighton, author of “Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia,” published by Ryerson Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for permitting Diane Oxner to select this material from the folklore of Nova Scotia for recording purposes.
Miss Creighton was born in Dartmouth, N.S., and educated at Halifax, Toronto and Columbia University, New York. For more than twenty-five years she has collected and recorded folksongs and ballads throughout the Maritime Provinces of Canada. She has worked for the Folk Song Archives of the National Museum of Canada, for the Library of Congress in Washington and the Memorial University of Newfoundland.
She made 250 wire recordings of Nova Scotia folksongs for the Library of Congress, Washington, and 250 wire recordings of Newfoundland folksongs for the Memorial University of Newfoundland.
She is the author of “Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia,” “Maritime Folk Songs,” “Bluenose Ghosts,” and co-author of “Traditional Songs of Nova Scotia,” “Tales Told in Canada,” and “Folklore of Lunenburg County.” Her most recent work is “More Tales Told in Canada.” Miss Creighton, who now lives in Halifax, continues her work in collecting folk songs and folk tales.
-end liner notes
The official song of Nova Scotia, Farewell to Nova Scotia, also known as ‘The Nova Scotia Song, is a favourite folk song of unknown authorship, believed to have been written shortly before or during World War I. Derived from ‘The Soldier’s Adieu’, by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill, the song was changed to reflect a soldier’s sorrow at leaving the hills behind as he heads out to sea.
Farewell to Nova Scotia gained popularity when it was recorded in 1964 by Catherine McKinnon to be used as the theme song of the Halifax CBC television show ‘Singalong Jubilee’. The song has been published in numerous books including Helen Creighton’s ‘Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia’ and Carrie B. Grover’s ‘A Heritage of Song’.
Farewell to Nova Scotia invokes images of a time when Nova Scotia was famed for wooden ships and iron men. Today, the song is used by many to reflect the sentiments of mass migrations of young people from Nova Scotia westward to Ontario and Alberta.
HONEST WORKING MAN
Written in 1929, this is a Cape Breton workers’ song that protests the importation of non-unionized, surplus labour from Newfoundland during the summer months. They were imported to meet seasonal demands or to fill the gap left by striking workers. These individuals became the target for contempt and ridicule by the local workforce. Although cited as the ‘national anthem’ of Cape Breton workers by both Stuart McCawley and Alphonse MacDonald, this song is rarely sung in Cape Breton today.
One fine evening at my leisure, I thought it quite a pleasure
To write a local ditty on the subject of the day
So I pinched a three cent taper, and a sheet of foolscap paper
I sat down quite contentedly, to pass the time away
chorus:
Way down in East Cape Breton, where they knit the socks and mittens
Chezzetcook is represented by the husky black and tan
May they never be rejected, and home rule be protected
And always be connected with the honest working man
What raises high my dander, next door lives the Newfoundlander
His wife I cannot stand her, since high living she began
First came the railroad rackers, and also the codfish packers
Who steal the cheese and crackers from the honest working man
When the leaves fall in the autumn, and fish freeze to the bottom
They take a three-ton schooner and go round the western shore
They load her with provision, hard tack and codfish mizzen
The like I never heard of since the downfall of Bras d'Or
The man who mixes mortar, gets a dollar and a quarter
While the sugar-factory worker only gets a dollar ten
Now I have a neighbor, who subsists on outside labour
And in winter scarcely earns enough to keep a sickly hen
We cross the Bay of Fundy, we got here on a Monday
Did you see me brother Angus? Now tell me if you can
He was first a soap-box greasman, but now he is a policeman
And he couldn't earn his living as an honest working man
The seventh of November so well do I remember
We crossed the little narrows and we landed in Boisdale
We went down to Joe Dowey, and we had a lemon howdy
And we all got rowdy dowdy on the road to Margeree
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