Clary Croft

"I have led a charmed life. I know that, and I am grateful every day."-- Clary Croft Folklorist, recording artist, actor, songwriter, broadcaster, storyteller, author, archivist, artisan, and designer: over a career spanning more than fifty years, Clary Croft has woven the threads of his vast array of talents into a tapestry that has enveloped the life of an artist, and in the process he's become a household name in Nova Scotia and beyond. With charming humility and cheeky humour, Clary shares memories and anecdotes of an eclectic career including his work with The Privateers, Sherbrooke Village, Singalong Jubilee, Neptune Theatre, CBC Mainstreet and, perhaps most importantly, his collaboration with eminent folklorist Helen Creighton. Featuring a foreword by writer, broadcaster, and former co-host of CBC's Singalong Jubilee Jim Bennet, and with more than fifty images in both colour and black and white, Clary Croft: My Charmed Life in Music, Art, and Folklore is an inspiring and entertaining chronicle of a creative life well lived.

Helen Creighton made a remarkable contribution towards retrieving the stories, songs, and legends that have shaped the culture and the people of the Maritimes. Written by her protégé, Clary Croft, this biography offers both a portrait of a woman woven into the fabric of Canadian folklore, and a glimpse into the social mores of her time.

The Child Ballads are a series of over 300 traditional ballads from England and Scotland that, along with their American variants, were anthologized by folklorist Francis James Child in the nineteenth century. An Evolving Tradition is the story of the Child Ballads—the world’s best-known and most highly regarded repository of traditional English folk songs, and the wellspring for approximately 10,000 recordings over the last century, from obscure musicological archives to classic releases from Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Led Zeppelin. Drawing on interviews with numerous scholars and musicians, author Dave Thompson explains what a ballad is, outlines their dominant themes, and recounts how these ballads survived to become a mainstay of field recordings made by Cecil Sharp, Alan Lomax, and others as they traveled the English and American countryside in search of old songs. Thompson traverses the entire spectrum of rock, pop, folk, roots, experimental music, industrial, and goth to reveal the remarkable legacy and incalculable influence of the Child Ballads on all manner of modern music.

The Magic of Christmas is always felt strongly in the Maritimes. This collection of yuletide stories is a mixture of true seasonal remembrances and fictional imaginings of the holiday season. Contributions are from over 20 Maritime writers, and touch on all the things that make Christmas so special: traditions, reunions with family and friends, the humour, and sometimes, the hardships. Some of the collection's contributions are familiar, many are heartwarming, but every story shares the same spirit of the season. This yuletide collection includes many well-known writers such as Harry Thurston, Steve Vernon, David Goss, Chris Mills, Heidi Jardine Stoddart, David Divine, and more.

Much has been written about the songs gathered in North America in the first half of the 20th century. However, there is scant information on those individuals responsible for gathering these songs. The Ballad Collectors of North America: How Gathering Folksongs Transformed Academic Thought and American Identity fills this gap, documenting the efforts of those who transcribed and recorded North American folk songs. Both biographical and topical, this book chronicles not only the most influential of these "song catchers" but also examines the main schools of thought on the collection process, the leading proponents of those schools, and the projects that they shaped. Contributors also consider the role of technology--especially the phonograph--in the collection efforts. Chapters organized by region cover such areas as Appalachia, the West, and Canada, while others devoted to specialized topics from the cowboy tune and occupational song to the commercialization of folk music through song collections and anthologies. Ballad Collectors investigates the larger role of the ballad in the development of American identity, from the national appreciation of cowboy songs in popular culture to the use of Appalachian song forms in radio broadcasts to the role of dustbowl ballads in the urban folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Finally, this collection assesses the changing role of songs and song texts in the academic fields of folklore, anthropology, musicology, and ethnomusicology. Scholars and students of American cultural and social history, as well as fans of North American folk and popular music, will find The Ballad Collectors of North America a fascinating story of how the American folk tradition gained greater visibility, fueling the revolutions that would follow in the writing and performance of American music.

Grade level: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, e, i, s.

This two-volume set examines dreams and dreaming from a variety of angles—biological, psychological, and sociocultural—in order to provide readers with a holistic introduction to this fascinating subject. Whether good or bad and whether we remember them or not, each night every one of us dreams. But what biological or psychological function do dreams serve? What do these vivid images and strange storylines mean? How have psychologists, religions, and society at large interpreted dreams, and how can a closer examination of our dreams provide useful insights? Dreams: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture presents a holistic view of dreams and the dreaming experience that answers these and many other questions. Divided thematically, this two-volume book examines the complex and often misunderstood subject of dreaming through a variety of lenses. This collection is written by a large and diverse team of experts and edited by leading members of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) but remains an approachable and accessible introduction to this captivating topic for all readers.

A collection of traditional Nova Scotian folktales, superstitions and home remedies compiled by the Canadian folklorist and author of Bluenose Ghosts. Beginning in 1928, Dr. Helen Creighton traveled across her native Nova Scotia seeking out and recording its rich heritage in the form of ghost stories, folktales, and folksongs. She first shared her findings in 1957 with the collection Bluenose Ghosts, and followed its success eleven years later with Bluenose Magic, both of which are considered classics of Maritime literature. This fascinating volume welcomes readers into a supernatural world of witchcraft, enchantment, and buried treasure. It shares stories of the region’s indigenous Mi’kmaq people as well as variations of tales brought over from Europe. Here too are folk remedies, dream interpretation, divination, superstitions, and more that has been passed on from generation to generation of Nova Scotia’s families