Folk Songs of 19th and Early 20th Century Oregon

History & Culture
  • First Non-native settlement after Lewis and Clark's expedition was led by John Jacob Astor in 1811 at Fort Astoria, a town now known simply as Astoria.
  • Fur trade was the primary industry that attracted new settlements.
  • With the start of the California Gold Rush in 1848 and 1849, many Oregonians left for the mines.
  • The gold boom in California subsequently created lucrative markets for wheat, produce, oysters, and the lumber industry.

Music of Oregon
  • Used for entertainment, to boost work morale, and to make light of pioneer life.
  • Instruments: tenor horn, cornet, tuba, fiddle, guitar, banjo, dulcimers, spoons, animal ribs, and snare and bass drum.
  • Almost entirely adapted from already well-known songs into regional variants and parodies, with very few songs and rhymes originating in the Oregon region.
  • Due to the “newness” of Oregon, popularization of published and printed music, and settlers coming from areas with well-established folk music traditions.

Outlaw Songs
Portland County Jail
  • Likely from the mid- to late-19th century.
  • According to Sandburg’s American Songbag, the song was learned by a Chicago newspaperman while in the Portland County Jail.
  • The easily extractable s f m r d pattern is ideal for preparation, presentation, and practice of the solfa syllable fa.

Mining Songs
The Ballad of the Territorial Road
  • About California miners traveling through Oregon to the Salmon River gold rush in Idaho in the 1860s.
  • Text variant of A Trip to Salmon by local miner Max Irwin.
  • Melody is that of the popular minstrel song Jordan is a Hard Road to Travel by Dan Emmett.
  • Can be used to teach ti-tika, tika-ti, and the solfa ti.

Logger Songs
Fifty Thousand Lumberjacks
  • Written by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union in 1919 in response to the 1917 logger strike.
  • Melody adapted from The Portland County Jail.

The Frozen Logger
  • Written by local logger James Stevens (b. 1892) in 1951.
  • Can be used to establish a major key or to introduce or practice the concept of compound meter.

Cowboy Songs
Cowboy’s Home Sweet Home
  • Cowboy folk singer Glen Ohrlin believed the song must have traveled from Texas, where the Slaughter ranch is, to Oregon, as some variants of the song substitute the ranch with the French ranch, "which was once a grazing empire in southern Oregon," according to Ohrlin.
  • Contains the extractable solfa pattern of d’ t l s m which provides an ideal opportunity for preparing, presenting, and practicing the solfa syllable ti. 
  • The song also provides the opportunity for comparing simple and compound duple meters.

Songs About Oregon
Oregon Land
  • Parody of hymn Beulah Land about the less than heavenly realities of pioneer life.
Oregon Suits Me
  • Melody adapted from Battle Hymn of the Republic and John Brown’s Song. 
  • Mentioned as a "new Chamber of Commerce song" in a December 6th, 1922 issue of The Coos Bay Times out of Marshfield, Oregon. 
Oregon Suits Me
  • Prepare or practice the solfa syllable fa while also practicing the solfa syllable do’
  • The second phrase provides an opportunity for preparing and practicing the solfa syllable ti and also contains the familiar solfa pattern s l s m s. 
  • The chorus contains both the tam-ti and tim-ka rhythmic syllables.
Alsea Girls
  • Regional variant (Alsea sits between Corvallis and the Oregon coast) of a folk song that has changed many times as it traveled across the country.
  • The Oregon version warns Oregon girls not to marry Oregon boys or cold johnny cakes and venison is all they'll see.
  • The first and third phrases provide the d m s l s solfa pattern. 
  • The second phrase offers the syncopa rhythm bookended by simpler rhythms, allowing for easy extraction.
  • The final phrase contains the solfa pattern s, l, t, d preceded by the familiar s m d pattern.

Farming Songs
John Alexander
  • According to a note found with a 1940 WPA Oregon folklore collection, the text of the song John Alexander was recited by Mason Y. Warner of Eugene, Oregon and "known to him as early as the 1880s and sung in the upper Willamette Valley country. (Jones and Ramsey 1994) 
  • Derived from the 18th century ballad Springfield Mountain (also known as On Springfield Mountain).
  • Contains the extractable rhythmic syllable ti-tika in the first phrase.
  • Contains the extractable solfa pattern l, t, d in the chorus.

Counting Out Rhymes
No titles and no reference outside of the book The Stories We Tell by Suzi Jones.

Zo, zi, zu zink;
Chitter, lilly, black trout;
Gibby, ganey – you're out!

Anny, manny, miney, moe;
Basel, louney, bonny, stine;
Air, wair, crown;
Fe, fi, fo finn.
Bibliography
Bumstead, B. James Stevens (1892-1972). The Oregon Encyclopedia, 
        www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/james_stevens_1892_1972_/#.YPc0uxP0lCV
Clark, S. A. (1905). Pioneer days of Oregon history. The A.H. Clark Co.
Jones, S., & Ramsey, J. (1994). The stories we tell: An anthology of Oregon folk literature. Oregon State
        University Press.
Lingenfelter, R.E. et al. (1968). Songs of the American West. University of California Press.
Nash, T., & Scofield, T. (1992) The well-traveled casket: A collection of Oregon folklife. University of Utah 
        Press.
Oregon Secretary of State. State of Oregon: Blue Book - Oregon History: Spread of Settlement,
        sos.oregon.gov/blue-book/Pages/facts/history/pre-spread.aspx.
Sandburg, C. (1927). American songbag. Harcourt, Brace & Co.