The American Ballad Singers: Elie Siegmeister, director

              THE American Ballad SINGERSELIE SIEGMEISTER, director
Figure

They warmed U. S. hearts
TIME
THE WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINEMUSICSinging the U.S. Scene
They sang as they went, from Salty New England to dusty Oklahoma. In the Johnny Appleseed country—Ohio and Indiana—they sang of Johnny Appleseed. They recounted Paul Bunyan's exploits in one of his own legendary stamping grounds, wooded north Michigan, while husky loggers clapped and yowled. They regaled Louisiana audiences with Creole songs. In their 7,500–mile, 21–State trip they warmed U.S. hearts with songs that were part of their soil and blood. Last week, when a dirt–stained bus rolled them from Greensboro, N.C. into Manhattan, the American Ballad Singers had wound up their first U.S. tour.

The man who led the Ballad Singers was Elie Siegmeister, a dark, merry, 33–year–old Brooklyn composer (May Day for orchestra. We Want tire World for chorus. Hip Hip Horray for NRA, an operetta). Elie Siegmeister talks with a touch of Brooklynese, teaches composition and piano for a living, bicycles to Coney Island for exercise. When he gets interested, he gets interested. When he got interested in balladry eleven years ago, he pored over thousands of songs in the Library of Congress, picked up many a ditty by word of mouth. He now knows 800. He trained his Ballad Singers—six professionals—to sing them straight; no flourishes. Says Elie Siegmeister, I feel art with a capital A is a menace.


The Ballad Singers' repertory goes back to the Pilgrims, and comes as up-to-date as Bataan. While the troupes bus rolled through New York State. Siegmeister wrote a Ballad of Douglas MacArthur, which he sandwiched into his programs.


A year ago Victor published a Ballad Singers album. Next week a newcomer among phonograph companies, Bost Rec-ords, is putting out another Siegmeister album: Songs of Early America. Some of the songs: The Saint's Delight, A Virgin Unspotted, The Devil and the Farmer's Wife, Soldier, Won't You Marry Me?
Figure
ELIE SIEGMEISTER

Elie Siegmeister, distinguished American composer, and director of the American Ballad Singers, has written extensively in many varied fields. Among his works are A Walt Whitman Overture,Abraham Lin-coln Walks at MidnightThe Strange Funeral in Braddock,Johnny Appleseed,Funny-bone Alley, and Yankee Doodle Dandy of the U. S. A.

Born in New York City in 1909, Mr. Siegmeister earned his Phi Beta Kappa key at Columbia in 1927 won a three year fellowship at the Juilliard Graduate School and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.


Besides composing, Elie Siegmeister has found time to engage in numerous other musical activities. He has conducted film music, given concerts of modern music, taught at universities collected folk ballads, and written two books, one the well–known A Treasury of American Song, with Olin Downes.
THE AMERICAN BALLAD
SINGERS

For sheer entertainment, as well as musical delight, the American Ballad Singers are unique. Seated around a table with their director–composer Elie Siegmeister  the head, this sextette of beautifully blended voices enter with gusto into the spirit of the folk tunes of our country.

Gathered from every part of the land, the ballads—including cowboy yodels, sea charities, spirituals, courting songs, mother–in–law tunes, hillbillies, work songs and songs for victory—provide a condensed and lively folk history of America.


All of the singers are outstanding soloists and are blessed with an uncommonly keen sense of humor. The group—composed of Ruth Fremont and Helen Yorke, sopranos, Rebekah Crawford, contralto, Thomas Edwards , tenor, Emile Renan, baritone, and Earl Waldo, basso—enjoys singing these songs and finds no difficulty in im-parting its enthusiasm to its audiences. 


In all, it is about as comprehensive a survey of this country's ballads as can be packed into one program's entertainment.

One of the best entertainments of the year
New Yorker Magazine

Figure


Elie Siegmeister, composer–director
Ruth Fremont, soprano
Helen Yorke, soprano
Rebekah Crawford, contralto
Thomas Edwards, tenor
Emile Renan, baritone
Earl Waldo, basso


MANAGEMENT: ALBERT MORINI
119 West 57th Street, New York
THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE INSTITUTE
AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC


OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR

30 Lafayette Avenue
BROOKLYN. NEW YORK
Sterling-3-6700


Mr. Albert Morini			December 28, 1942
119 West 57th Street New York, NY 

Dear Mr. Morini:
  The concert last Tuesday evening by the 
American Ballad Singer was a great success.  Rainy
Weather did not prevent us from having a large audience,
Nor did it quench in any way the enthusiasm with which 
The Singers were received.


 I cannot speak too highly of the American
Ballad Singers.  Their voices form a perfect ensemble and
Their program is refreshing in its variety.


  Please convey to Mr. Siegmeister my personal
 regards.  He is doing a wonderful job.

With best wishes, 
Sincerely yours
Julius Bloom, Director
BROOKLYN EAGLE, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 23, 1941
American Ballad Singers
Delight Academy Audience
By MILES KASTENDIECK

  It takes an organization like the American Ballad Singers to bring home to us the rich folklore of our own country. Such a varied program as that presented at the Academy of Music last night was not only entertaining, but revealing. Our folk music is just beginning to be cultivated, and such concerts as this serves to acquaint the public with Americana of prime importance in the development of our own culture. Under the direction of Elie Siegmeister, a native of Brooklyn, the singers put on a good show. The audience was constantly diverted by what it saw in the by–play among the singers and quite pleased with what it heard Siegmeister contributed his Street Cries and ballads on the legendary Americans, Bunyan, Lincoln and MacArthur. A groups of modern folk songs concluded the printed program.


  There wasn't a song that was lacking in interest or in flavor. Mr. Siegmeister has done some fine work in gathering together and arranging them. He deserves much credit for his pioneering in this field.


  The singers are excellent individually and collectively for this sort of performance. They enter so completely into the spirit of the songs that their performances are delightful. The ensemble includes Ruth Fremont, soprano; Helen Yorke, soprano; Rebekah Crawford, contralto; Thomas Edwards, tenor; Emile Renan, baritone, and Earl Waldo, bass.
THE NEW YORKER
MUSICAL EVENTS

One of the best entertainments of 1941 was the session of the American Ballad Singers, directed by Elie Siegmeister, at Town Hall.  Mr. Siegmeister had arranged almost two dozen American native songs fetchingly and his vocal sextet sang them with euphony and humor.  If you want to go to a concert for fun as well as the things one usually goes for, get a load of the American Ballad Singers next time they come around
THE COOPER UNION
COOPER SQUARE
NEW YORK, N. Y.
DIVISION OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

HOUSTON PETERSON			
HEAD OF THE DIVISION

FREE PUBLIC FORUM
EXTENSION COURSES	
FOR ADULTS


October 20, 1942


Mr. Albert Morini
119 West 57 Street
New  York, New York


Dear Mr. Morini:

Just a word to say that the American Ballad Singers gave a wonderfully successful concert before some thirteen hundred people in the famous Old Hall of The cooper Union last Friday evening. Each member of the group was full of life and enthusiasm and yet to my amateur ear they worked together flawlessly. They at once caught the flavor of the Old Hall and no doubt the large and grateful audience was an inspiration to them.


May I thank you once again for being willing to send the American Ballad Singer to us on such modest terms.


 Very truly yours,
 Houston Peterson

THE NEW YORK TIMES,
American Ballad Singers

As if to settle the question, Is there an American music?  Elie Siegmeister and his American Ballad Singers came to Town Hall last night with a complete program of music as native as a Tin Pan Alley tune. It contained a few works that had been born on paper; but the majority sprang from farms, streets, hearths and work–benches, reminding us that only a small part of the treasurable music of any country comes from the pens of conservatory graduates. In our own country, whose conservatories are principally occupied with the conservatory music of other lands, this is particularly worth remembering. Each of the singers has a voice that does not fear exposure in solo work, and the group sings with a clean ensemble, a oneness of feeling and a communicative zest.


 It was the homely folk–tunes that knew no composer and were never intended to he sung from a concert platform that proved to be viable music. Go to SIeepy, a traditional lullaby; Poor Wayfaring Stranger, a white spiritual, and The Deaf Woman's Courtship, a humorous answering song—these had the pulse of the feeling and a genuinely native ring.


So, too, had the songs of the slave, the Kentucky moonshiner, Alabama sharecropper, the cowboy, the cobbler with his out–dated peg and awl, and the Irish laborers on the Union Pacific grousing about bugs, beer and bosses. And who will deny the music of the street cries of the New Orleans chimneysweep, the Brooklyn strawberry peddler and the Missouri charcoal seller? For these tunes came from the life of a people, to which the studio denizens are often strangers.
Wilson College
Chambersburg, PA.

DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC


November 16, 1942
Dear Mr. Morini:


The American Ballad Singers were received with enthusiasm at Wilson College. The ensemble singing was excellent, so were the voices and the individual singing of each member of the group. 

The clever way in which Mr. Siegmeister developed into beautiful musical compositions the mere suggestions of melody, was much admired.


Sincerely yours,
(signature)
THE ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY
CANTON, NEW YORK

December 1, 1942.


Mr. Albert Morini 
119 West 57th Street 
New York, N.Y.


Dear Mr. Morini:


We enjoyed the program of the Ballad Singers very much. A large and appreciative audience followed the cleverly arranged sequence of folk songs with enthusiastic approval of both the technical competence of the singers and the verve and energy which marked the program.


Sincerely yours,
Harold E.B. Speight Dean.
YALE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
SPRAGUE MEMORIAL HALL

BRUCE SIMONDS, Dean	    NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT


October 14, 1942


Mr. Albert Morini
119 West 57th Street
New York City


Dear Mr. Morini:


The American Ballad Singers last night gave a delightful concert and were a very real success with our audience. Thank you so Much for letting us have them.


I enclose a clipping from one of the New Haven daily papers. The Treasurer's office has been asked to send you a check, and will you please notify me if it is not received within a few days?

Faithfully yours,
Bruce Simonds


BS:AT
Enc. Clipping
THE NEW HAVEN JOURNAL-COURIER,
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1942
Last Night's Recital    American Ballad Singers at Sprague

The new Sprague Hall season started very auspiciously last night by the American Ballad Singers. A program native American music would be interesting at any time, but it seemed especially inspiring in these times of warfare. To know that the United States has songs of their own, grown right out of American life, songs that are unknown to many, makes one divine the hidden riches of American life and the natural strength of the American soul. Most of these songs show characteristics which we are justified in calling American, even though much of the basic material may have originated In Europe.


  Many of the ballads heard last night should be known more widely and should be sung not only by artists out by every man, woman and child in this country. Can anything be moreup to date than the oId revolutionary song by Sumner  (1754-1836) All Haughty Tyrants we Disdain and Shout 'Long live America.'The Ballad singers stayed away from the songs America sings—too often. Some of the songs were new to most of the audience such as the white spiritual Poor Wayfaring Stranger, or Link o' day a song about the Underground Railway. They were received with great enthusiasm.

  Under the heading The Melting Pot came songs of various American nationalities: Spanish–American, New England, Scotch, Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish American. We found that the Okies have produced a song Chilly Winds, very melancholy and very beautiful.  Some of the ballads again were very cheerful such as the Deaf Woman's Courtship or Cafe Cod Girls, a sailor's song.


Elie Siegmeister, the director, arranger and conductor of this group won acclaim also as a com-poser of three ballads. The Ballad of Douglas MacArthur, simpler than the others, proved to be the
most effective.


  The American Ballad Singers must be praised not only for their beautiful program but also for the perfection of their singing.  Their singing style has the perfection found in some famous chamber music ensembles but rarely in any singing organization.  We hope that not only the American Ballad Singers will be with us soon but that their American Ballads will be loved and sung by every American.
Exclusive Management
ALBERT MORINI
119 West 57th Street		New York
Green Mountain Junior College
POULTNEY, VERMONT
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

November 23, 1942


Mr. Albert Morini
119 West 57th Street
New York, New York


Dear Mr. Morini:


Thank you for your kind letter of November 20. May I say that the concert by the American Ballad Singers proved to be one of the most exciting and well liked programs which we have ever had. It was quite different from any of the other programs, and that in part was what made it so enjoyable.


We believe the American Ballad Singers are rendering a fine service by reinterpreting the old folk songs, legends, and ballads of the people to the institutions of higher education and to other audiences of culture.


Yours very sincerely,
Jesse P. Bogue
President
IOWA CITY,  Iowa           Nov. 9, 1942
Ballad Singers Prove Delight to Audience

By LESLIE MOORE


The American Ballad Singers, Elie Siegmeister director, appeared last night in Atwood Hall as a presentation of the Clark University Fine Arts Course.  Interspersed with descriptive remarks by Mr. Siegmeister,  the program included native American songs from the Pilgrim Fathers to Douglas MacArthur.


Six singers comprise the ensemble: Ruth Fremont, soprano; Helen Yorke, soprano; Rebekah Crawford, contralto; Thomas Edwards, tenor; Dolf Swing, baritone; and Earl Waldo, bass.


Those who braved the chill to hear the Fine Arts event will put it down as one of the most delightful of this or any other season. Mr. Siegmeister, who ranks with or above Sigmund Spaeth as a diligent and skillful digger into American folk music, and whose published collection of native songs a couple of years ago has already become standard, demonstrated that he is not merely a grass-roots musicologist of distinction, but an arranger and director of high talent.

Ballad Singers Superb


The Ballad Singers, we should explain, sit somewhat casually at a long table, catch the pitch from a pipe and reel off enchanting songs with ease.  They do for American folk songs what the London Singers do so superbly for English music.  
Mr. Siegmeister is blessed not only with a rich background of knowledge for his programs but he has assembled a splendidly balanced sextet of voices.  Singing largely without accompaniment, the group's intonation and shadings were well–nigh flawless.


Folk Songs Memorable

Folk songs of today, another group, were especially  memorable for a lovely southern mountain folk hymn, Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head, and a sharply contrasting York state ripper about the farmer whose wife was more than Old Nick could handle.

Mr. Siegmeister, you might say, is unexcelled as a gleaner, arranger and interpreter of native folk music.  In that field he is making an inestimable contribution to his country's cultural heritage.


The solo work, in which all six singers shared and which all enlivened by bits of by–play and tasteful comic effect, was uniformly of high and pleasing quality.
THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY. IOWA
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR   SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
December 2, 1941


Mr. Erich Siodmak,
AIbert Morini, Artist Management
119 West 57th Street
New York, New York


My dear Mr. Siodmak:


The American Ballad Singers gave a splendid account of themselves in their concert here at the University of Iowa.


They pleased the general audience and the critical lovers of music alike.


It was one of the most remarkable combinations of genuine entertainment and authentic artistry it has been my pleasure to experience.


We should be very glad to have them again.


Sincerely yours,
Earl E. Harper
Chairman, University Concert Course
SUSQUEHANNA UNIVERSITY CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC 
Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
Office of the Director

November 6, 1942


Albert Morini, Artist Mgm't.
119 W. 57th Street
 New York, New York


Dear Mr. Morini:


The American Ballad Singers gave their concert here Iast evening, and I am sure they found the audience a very responsive one according to their own statements.  Their program was unique and very informative, since I feel that few of our American people know much about the American Ballads. Mr. Seigmeister spoke before the music students at 4 p.m.  His informal talk was greatly appreciated by faculty and students.


Sincerely yours,
E. Edwin Sheldon, Director
SELINGSGROVE, Pa.
November 6, 1942
BALLAD SINGERS SCORE HIT AT SUSQUEHANNA

American Ballad Singer's program of three centuries of American folk songs in a concert at Susquehanna University Thursday night was a flash–back to American History on eagle wings of song. This outstanding group of individual soloists singing togethed in a perfectly blanded ensemble–composed of Ruth Fremont, soprano; Helen Yorke, soprano; Evelyn MacGregor, contralto; Earl Rogers, tenor; Emile Renan, baritone; and Earl Waldo, bass, provided as comprehensive a survey of native ballads and folk songs of this country as could be packed into one evening's entertainment.  


  The perfomance was the first in Central Pennsylvania and was enthusiastically received by a large audience as the sextette's keen sense of humor kept their hearers in convulsions of laughter.  The Susquehanna Valley Music Club attended the concert after a dinner–program in the college dining room.

  The program merited praise for its variety and its representative nature, its illustration of the various types of American balladry, from the early seventeenth century to the presenttime with the Ballad of Douglas MacArthur written by the composer–director; Elie Siegmeister.  They gave a performance marked by unerring unity, understanding and enjoyment of their music with an admirably blended and balance quality of tone and throughout gave an impression of entire spontaneity, well suited to the unsophisticated style of the music.
WORCESTER, Mass.   November 15,1942
American Ballad Singers Give Second in '42 Concert Series

By BILL HILL


A colorful and charming concert was presented in Iowa Union last night when Siegmeister led his six American Ballad singers in the second program of the 1942–43 concert series.


As the singers were grouped about a table and were friendly and unassuming, there was an air of delightful informality which marked the presentation of the various types of American ballads. The singers obviously enjoyed temselves and the audience followed suit. After the concert one felt as if he had spent a comfortable evening with congenial friends.


In Five Parts

The program was divided into five parts: Music of Early America; Americans at Work: The Melting Pot; Folk Songs of Today and Ballads for Victory. Two early American carols exemplified the first religious music in this country. Of especial interest was the white spiritual. Poor Wayfaring Stranger. This tenor solo was beautifully sung by Thomas Edwards, tenor.  The rest of this group were humorous ballads including a tale of two lovers dying by rattlesnake poison, Old Dan Tucker,Lubly Fan and Long lke and Sweet Betsy in the gold rush.


Americans at Work included Savannah firemen's chant, street cries, workers on a railroad, a cowboy and a cotton dance song. From the American melting pot the southern Negroes, New England Scotch, creoles and Catskill workers were represented. In the section, Folk Songs of Today, an Alabama sharecropper mournfully tells how he hunts and cannot find work, a southern lullaby, and the adventures of the frog who courted a mouse.


'Farmer's Wife'

Also sung was The Devil and the Farmer's Wife in which the story was told of the quarreling wife who was taken down to Hell by the devil; shhe raised too much hell there and so the devil sent her back to her poor husband.

Siegmeister has composed three ballads for victory which were  given as the final group. They were entitled A New Wind A—Blown',Ballad of the Lincoln Penny and Ballad of Douglas MacArthur. These were patriotic without being maudlin as so many present day songs are. Two encores were given, one telling of an old lady who was hard of hearing up to a point and a story extolling the glories of whiskey.
CLARK UNIVERSITY
WORCESTER MASSACHUSETSS
DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS
LORING HOLMES DODD
H EARLE JOHNSON

November Fifteen
1 9 4  2


Dear Albert Morini


What a fine group of people the American
Ballad Singers are. They are so evidently having a good time that the audience perforce shares it with them. There are moments too of elusive beauty when exquisite sounds come floating out over the footlights. It was a very delightful evening.


Applausively!
Loring Holmes Dodd
ONEONTA, NY
November 3,1942
Forum Members Welcome Program By Ballad Singes

  A delightful musical entertainment as well as an unusual forum program, was enjoyed by several hundred members of the Public School and college forum last evening in the OHS auditorium when the American Ballad Singers presented a concert of native American music, dating from 1778 to 1942.

  They were introduced by Miss Elin K. Jorgensen of the STC faculty, and their repertoire was explained by their director, Elie Siegmeister. Seated around a table, the group sang in an informal way that appealed to the audience almost as much as did the real artistry of the singers. Each member is a soloist, as well as an ensemble singer, and each had an opportunity to display his or her individual talent. 


  So enthusiastically was the concert received that the singers obligingly gave three encores, and finally sang an entire extra group of numbers. Their reper-toire includes folk songs from all parts of the country, and from all periods of American history.
ONEONTA SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL 
ONEONTA, NEW YORK
HAROLD V. HAGER PRINCIPALNovember 30, 1942 
EDNA NY. LAWRENCE VICE PRINCIPAL

Mr. Albert Morini
119 West 57th Street
New York City


Dear Mr. Morini:


The American Ballad Singers were well received in Oneonta on the evening of November 2nd. Their presentations were of unusual merit. They were excellent not only in voice and arrangement but their sparkling personalities formed an immediate link of friendship between themselves and their audience.


Very  truly yours,
Harold V. Hager, Chairman 
Oneonta Public School and College Forum
STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE
POTSDAM, NEW YORK
CLARENCE O. LEHMAN. PRESIDENT
HELEN M. HOSMER
DIRECTOR OF CRANE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC

November 18, 1942


Albert Morini Concert Management
119 West 57th Street 
New York, New York


Dear Mr. Morini:


Inclosed please find a check for $550 for the performance of the American
Ballad Singers at the Potsdam State Teachers College on Thursday, November
17th. 


Since Miss Hosmer was planning to leave town at six-thirty this morning, she asked me after the concert last night to tell you how very much she and the audience as a whole enjoyed the concert. It was all that you said it would be--and more.


Very sincerely yours
Julia L. Colton 
Secretary, Crane Office
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.  November 16, 1942
American Ballad Singers Present Unusual Program at Auditorium
Opening Concert of YMCA Series Given by Group of Musicians Well-Trained in Specialized Art

The Young Men's Christian association opened its 43rd series of Sunday afternoon meetings yesterday at the auditorium with a program of songs by the American Ballad Singers that was decidedly off the beaten concert track.  Under Elie Siegmeister's direction, Ruth Freemont and Helen Yorke, soprano; Rebekah Crawford, contralto; Thomas Edwards, tenor; Dolph Swing, baritone; and Earl Waldo, bass, sang in highly entertaining fashion American songs from the days of the Pilgrim fathers to the present.


In group songs or those called for solo worked, the Singers proved themselves to be the musicians well trained in the specialized art of interpreting ballads in terms of their original settings.  Since these ballads were for the most part of the intimate type, designed for small meeting places of similarly confined spaces, it was something of a feat to project them in a hall that seats 3900, but Mr. Siegmeister and his sextet accomplished it to the complete satisfaction of a large audience.

The first part consisted of music of early America.  Who is the Man?was perhaps the first hymn sung in Plymouth when the Pilgrims landed in 1620.  Springfield Mountain, which, Mr. Siegmeister explained, stemmed from near here about 1760 told a tragic tale (now humorously regarded) of a farmer who was bitten by a sarpint and taken to his sweetheart who attempted to draw out the pizen with her ruby lips.  Unfortunately both of them died.  A Virgin Unspotted was written by William Billings who lived from 1746 in 1800 and published by Paul Revere.  It was sung in a sparkling manner but gave emphasis to Mr. Seigmeister's contention that the songs of Billings deserve more attention.

Old Dan Tucker, who combed his hair with a wagon wheel and died with a toothache in his heel, was one of two minstrel songs the Ballad Singers offered.  The other was the rollicking Lubly Fan.  The White spiritual Poor Wayfaring Stranger, first published about 1820 and still sung in the mountain country today, brought Mr. Edwards's excellent tenor voice into full focus.


Mr. Siegmeister's arrangement of the children's games, Itisket, Itaskit,Little Sally Sand,It Rains and It Pours and Here Come Three Merchants, into a round provided considerable merriment as did the street cries of the New Orleans creole chimney-sweep,  the blackberry woman, the Springfield (Mo.) charcoal peddler and above all, that of the Brooklyn strawberry peddler as exhorted by Miss Yorke.  Her final appeal to buy her strawberries must have been heard in Longmeadow.  In other songs, however, she was permitted to reveal the gentler qualities of a very attractive voice.

There were many other ballads that told much about the spirit of America.  Miss Freemont sang the Creole song, Salangadou with great charm and Miss Crawford and Mr. Waldo did The Devil and the Farmer's Wife with telling effect, both musically and dramatically.
BROOKLYN EAGLE, SUNDAY, DEC. 20, 1942
Boro Writer of Ballads Heard
Peddler's Cry and Found a Song

America is on the threshold of a national music of her own, Elie Siegmeister, youthful Brooklyn
born composer and director  of the American Ballad Singers, told the Eagle in an interview yesterday. American music is unique in itself, he added, and need not imitate the foreign idea.


Siegmeister, who Is bringing his group of six ballad singers to the Academy of Music Tuesday, has arranged a lively and diversified program of American ballads for their first full–length concert in Brooklyn. There are psalms of the Pilgrims, songs of the earliest settlers, ballads of courting, love, mothers–in–law, sea chanteys, children's game songs, street cries and folk tunes of present–day America, including the young director's own recently written Ballad of Douglas MacArthur.

The American ballad has been steadily regaining its popularity among the people as evidenced by the group's enthusiastic reception on a tour of the New England and mid–Western States. This is but natural for the ballad is as traditionally American as the country store. Call it folk music, ballads, blues or what have you, it is the stuff Americans have been humming, whistling, chanting, crooning, shaking a foot to or scratching a fiddle at ever since there has been an America.


Represents All Sections


There is hardly a section of the country that to not represented by a ballad, hence their national appeal.


Siegmeister has traveled the length and breadth of America gathering the ballads and folk songs which go to make up the program, his journeyings taking him into the back hills of the Paul Bunyan country or to Alabama for a chat over the back–yard fence of some aged sharecropper.


For a long while I was distracted while trying to compose by the peddler on our block, he said. One day—when he was in rare form outside my living–room window—I dotted down the notes. You'll hear it included among the Street Cries at the concert.


Siegmeister is glad that Brooklyn Is represented and said that no matter how far from home they traveled the mention of a Brooklyn ballad evoked a warm and jovial response. Maybe it's because of the Dodgers, he added.

The group—who sit around a table in the center of the stage— includes Ruth Fremont and Helen Yorke, sopranos; Rebekah Crawford, contralto; Tom Edwards, tenor; Emile Renan, baritone, and Earl Waldo, bass. All of these singers—with the exception of Rebekah Crawford, who is the wife of the Rev. C. B. Muste, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church–appear with the American Ballad Singers In addition to their regular radio and concert chores. Mr. Renan has Just completed an engagement at the Rainbow Room.


Old Custom


Asked  why the group sits around a table, Siegmeister pointed out that this was the traditional custom in early American days. It was a charming, neighborly custom, he explained, where friends gathered in one another's houses, sat around a long table and sang away the long Winter evenings. We try—in our presentation of these ballads—to recapture this same friendly atmosphere, so we don't go in for any lighting effects or other such theatrical touches, he explained, with the result that the audience is made to feel a part of it all.

Siegmeister—whose book, A Treasury of American Song, written in collaboration with Olin Downes, is still a popular Christmas gift—has composed all the music for Doodle Dandy of the U.S.A. (a ballet with ballads), which opens at the Belasco Theater in Manhattan the day alter Christmas. This, too, is in the American tradition, for ballads were stories originally danced to, Siegmeister said.

One of the reasons I like the ballads so much—aside from the fact that they are a virtual history of our country in the songs the people have sung—is that they form a sort of wedge for opening our minds to an appreciation of our own native, spirited music, Siegmeister said.


It should be a big night for Brooklyn when this Boys High alumnus gathers his little group around a table on the stage of the Academy of Music and leads them in a ballad of his favorite borough.
The Washington Post
TUESDAY, JULY 7, 1942
Postlude
American History Told In Song

By Ray C. B. Brown


Patrons could not have asked for better weather than the kind that prevailed last evening for the 8th Starlight Chamber Music Concert of the summer in Meridian Hill Park. As the large  audience gathered in the waning glow of sunset, gay frocks made a varigated parterre of colors around the reflecting pool and on the terrace facing the stage, adding live patterns  to the formal design of the park. When these tints were dimmed by dark-ness, the stars became visible one by one in the blue vault, and amateur astronomers could try to identify Aldebaran, Altair or Betelgeuse.


Under these pleasant conditions, the American Ballard Singers made their local debut under the direction of the founder and director, Elie Siegmeister, and won the immediate approbation of their hearers. This is  exactly the of ensemble which has long been needed after the invasion of the English Singers and other nationalistic groups, for our own stores of folk music have been comparatively neglected while we listened to importations. With the laudable purpose of expanding our knowledge of the music folk lore which has been accumulating for three centuries, Mr. Siegmeister has selected songs representative of our history and our geography.


Voices Blend WeII

The sextet of singers blend their voices well, phrase with precision, enunciate with clarity, and each is capable of taking a solo part most agreeably. Their esprit de corps is excellent, and they have an astounding sense of humor. There is nothing stilted about their performance which has the naturalness of a neighborhood meeting. The listener had the feeling of eaves–dropping on a group of singers unaware that anyone was listening.

Mr. Siegmeister has studied his material so well that he has caught the knack of writing ballads that have the true American flavor. This was evident not only in his tribute to General MacArthur, but also in his madcap Paul Bunyan and his moving Ballad of a Lincoln Penny. He proves in his own person that folk songs are the product of all times and Places.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.
November 16,1942
BALLAD SINGERS OPEN ANNUAL 'Y' SUNDAY SERIESEarly American Music Is Featured in First Concert

Willard M. Clark


The American people have sung their way through good times and bad, putting into words and tunes, not only epochal events, but little everyday occurances which form today a musical history of the growth of this Country. Through the enterprise of Elie Siegmeister and the voices of the American Ballad Singers, these songs, ballads, spirituals and hymns of our forefathers live anew, and a not too large audience was indebted yesterday to the YMCA for the presentation of this group in the opening Sunday afternoon meeting of the 43d series of Y Sunday meetings.


The group sat around a table like the English singers used to sit at and with Mr. Siegmeister unobtrusively conducting, sang delightfully early American music like Springfield Mountain,A Virgin Unspotted, perhaps the first carol to be penned on these shores; minstrel songs such as Old Dan Tucker and Lubly Fan and the perennial songs of chil-dren such as ltiskit, ltaskit,Here Come Three Merchants or Little Sally Rand.

Their singing was marked by a fine blend of tone superb musicianship, and spontaneity; the quieter songs came through perfectly and it was noticed that each solo bit was sung with finest of enunciation. Outstanding among the solo excerpts were those sung by the tenor Thomas Edwards and the contralto, Miss Crawford.


Probably few in the audience had ever heard the songs sung by Americans while they work. A sea chantey, Cape Cod Girl was a stalwart bit and so was the Cotton Dance Song, sung by Negro share–croppers at the end of the season. Rarely lovely was a Night Herding song sung by cowboys to quiet their herds. Around many of the simple melodies Mr. Siegmeister had arranged counter melodies which made for more effective presentation.
THE DARTMOUTH HANOVER, N. H.,
NOVEMBER 23, 1942
Singers Present Panorama Of American Ballad Music

by Frank Brady


The American Ballad Singers present a varied and exciting pro-gram. In Saturday night's joint concert, their songs were a revelation of what a really good ensemble can accomplish with our native folk music. The program of the Ballad Singers was divided nominally into three parts: Music of Early America, Americans at Work, and Music of Present–Day America; but in reality the most basic distinction in their songs was between serious and comic.


The comic ballads were the delight of the audience, and especial credit must be given to the expert mimicry of the artists which enhanced the appeal of these comic tunes considerably. The best of this group were Springfield Mountain and Children's Games.Springfield Mountain is the sad, sad story of a country lad who is bitten by a snake, his sweetheart who attempts to suck the poison out and their tragic fate.
Children's Games is a medley of such games as Itisket Itasket, and in this work the acting rather than the singing was the highlight of the performance. Another curiously effective synthesis of this type was Street Cries which combined the various sounds produced by a chimney sweep, a blackberry woman, strawberry peddlers and a charcoal vendor.

The best of the serious works on the program was Poor Wayfaring Stranger, a White spiritual, which was sung by Thomas Edwards, the tenor of the group. Mr. Edwards showed a well–trained and expressive voice, which captured the mood of this poignant melody in a simple and satisfactory fashion. Who Is The Man, a Pilgrim Psalm, received a sincere and moving performance from the whole ensemble.