This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #133 (December 2007/January 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Unearthed

Treasures and Oddities from the American Folklife Center Archive at the Library of Congress

by Steve Winick

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is home to recordings and manuscripts of many stellar traditional musicians; this column has already featured names like Pete Seeger, Robert Johnson, and Leadbelly. But some performers with equally impressive credentials and repertoires never achieved such notoriety. Take, for example, Pearl R. Nye (1872-1950), who spent most of his career as the captain of a boat on the Ohio and Erie Canal. Library of Congress fieldworkers visited Nye in Akron, Ohio, three times during the 1930s, collecting 75 songs. The resulting discs, together with a wealth of manuscripts and other contextual material, make up an exciting collection of lore from an extraordinary representative of one of America's forgotten occupational communities.

By all accounts, Nye was a colorful character, and absolutely in love with life on the canal. He expressed this in many ways, not least by constructing a ramshackle cabin on top of an abandoned canal lock near Roscoe, Ohio, using scrap from an old boat. He named the house "Camp Charming" and spent considerable time there enjoying the canal. Unfortunately, his career coincided with the end of the lifestyle he loved. In 1913, severe spring flooding caused extensive damage to the canal, and this, along with the growing power of the railroad, forced it to close.

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #133 (December 2007/January 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Copyright ©2007 Visionation, Ltd.