Information/Write-up
Liner notes:
A Canadian Garland
Folksongs from the Province of Ontario
LaRenaClark
Mrs. Gordon Clark, who was born LaRena LeBarr, is an Ontario singer who learned a great traditional song from both her parents and grandparents in her youth. This record emphasizes the older British songs and recitations, but she also knows lumbering songs, local ballads, and semi-improvised comical songs concerned with animals and neighbours. Her father and she have been in contact with the LaRena's since French colonists who came to Canada early in the nineteenth century. The Clarks, originally from the Ottawa Valley, moved to Huntsville in Muskoka, Ontario, near Lake Simcoe, and obtained a land grant near Lake Simcoe. In those wooded hills, great log jams stood in boom towns; when these broke, as on the great log jam on Deep Bay (Cannington), they sent logs into a vast pond landing in the rich Lake Simcoe clay. This pond is now used by the Ontario Fish Hatchery.
LaRena’s grandfather had Irish, French, English, and American lumbering ancestors. LaRena’s grandmother and her father, Joseph LeBarr, provided her and her brothers with a rich source of old songs and stories. She has sung them for tourists on her pleasure boat and is now following a var-spire of forestry teaching and radio program appearances, in which she discusses the songs and their origins.
Mrs. Gordon Clark has appeared with Tom Kines, who knew them to Canada from Scotland, in Toronto folk clubs and on radio and TV. She has given concerts in many towns and cities in Canada and has appeared in Scotland with some of the top names in English and Scottish song.
On a trip through Canada with her tape recorder, Kenneth S. Goldstein recorded her songs and released them on Folkways Records in the United States and Canada. She has worked in Manitoba and Alberta, but she kept in touch with Ontario and she has never wanted to abandon the older songs.
On this record, we are treated to many of the songs LaRena learned from her family. The Clarks had arrived near Cannington, Ontario, when LaRena was three years old. They had two children, and LaRena married Mr. Clark. She has lived in Orillia, Ottawa, and Toronto.
LaRena and Mr. Clark’s songs are genuine folksongs of a rural Ontario origin. She knows many ballads, recitations, anecdotes and songs from her forebears, as well as modern songs, and she sings with sincerity and charm.
Her work is a major contribution to the study of Ontario folksongs, and she has been recorded by Edith Fowke and by Kenneth Goldstein.
Her address is: LaRena Clark, c/o Duke of York Street, Hootenanny, Ltd., 6 Rainside Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada.
SIDE ONE
RATTLE ON THE STOVEPIPE
Mrs. Clark sings two types of polka set courting dances to this song. The polka-type dance requires much energy. Village couples danced this in the front rooms of their homes until the house shook (see Social Organization of Canadian Farmers by S. D. Clark). The other structure uses a set of step dances.
LORD GREGORY (Child 76)
This is her family version of Lord Gregory, which originated in Scotland. It is a song about a girl abandoned by her lover and her death outside his door. This is one of the most famous of the ballads in the English language and is widely known. In Canada it has been collected from lumbermen and sailors as well as from rural and urban folk. It is closely related to the Irish version, which has a different ending.
THYME ’TIS A PRETTY FLOWER
This is an English song of the "Seeds of Love" type, brought to Canada by English settlers. It has been found in several versions in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces.
THE RIFLE BOYS
Mrs. Clark calls this a "soldering song" and it is found in her family repertoire, having been learned from her father. The title refers to a famous regiment in British history. It is a lively song, and in Canada it has been printed in several songsters.
THE HOUSE CARPENTER
This is the well-known ballad more generally called The Daemon Lover. Mrs. Clark’s version is from her family tradition, learned in Muskoka, Ontario, in the early 1900’s.
SIDE TWO
THE BANKS OF THE NILE (Laws 9)
This ballad is about a girl who wore a man’s uniform to follow her lover to war. She tells him that if he leaves her she will die. This ballad appears to have been composed about the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
I ONCE LOVED A LASS
A beautiful Scottish love song, also sung in Ireland and England, this song has been printed in many versions in British collections. It is also known as "The False Bride" and is one of the most popular of all the folk songs.
THE DAPPLE GREY (Child 4)
A fine English song about a girl who asks for a ride on a young man’s horse. This is one of the old ballads which has perhaps originated in the 17th century.
THE OLD COUNTRY FAIR
This is one of the old songs which Mrs. Clark sings with great enthusiasm. It is found in many versions in both England and Canada.
THERE WAS A LORD IN EDINBURGH (Child 221)
This ballad is closely related to the well-known "Broomfield Hill."
THE FAGGOT CUTTER
This is one of Mrs. Clark’s humorous songs and it is widespread in Ontario.
Recorded by Edith Fowke, Toronto 1965;
Recorded by Kenneth S. Goldstein, Toronto 1965;
From these two field recordings by Fowke and Goldstein, program arranged by Topic, 1965.
Topic Records Ltd.
27 Nassington Road
London NW3
LaRena (b LeBarr) Clark. Folksinger, b LeBarr Landing, near Lake Simcoe, Ont, of French and English-Irish parents, 21 Nov 1904, d Orilla, Ont, 3 May 1991. Raised in various northern Ontario centres (her father and grandfather were hunters, trappers and boat-builders), she learned many songs from her family and developed a large and varied repertoire which included British ballads and music hall songs, country and western songs, and Canadian lumbering songs. For the collector Edith Fowke she sang a number of these songs in the early 1960s. Some were published in Fowke's collections and issued on the LP LaRena Clark: A Canadian Garland (Topic 12T140). Appearances followed on local radio stations and at folk festivals in Canada and the USA. Residing after 1975 in Hawkstone, near Barrie, Ont, Clarke continued to record, completing nine LPs for her own Clark label. In 1987 she was awarded the Marius Barbeau Medal by the Folklore Studies Association of Canada. Her biography, A Family Heritage: LaRena Clark's Story and Songs was completed by Edith Fowke and Jay Rahn in 1991.
Author Edith Fowke
Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0000725
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