Folksongs of Vermont

Born in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, Margaret MacArthur spent her childhood moving around the western United States. Her first contact with folk music came in 1933, when her father began work at an Arizona timber company with displaced cowboys and folk singers who had collected songs throughout their travels. In 1948 MacArthur moved to Vermont, where she gathered the songs presented here from churches, friends, and broadsides found near her farm. When speaking of her death, Margaret MacArthur’s granddaughter Robin wrote, "On her deathbed she was sick with morphine, most of her memory gone, but she could still remember the lyrics to any ballad we asked her to sing. This music had etched itself into her soul; song and landscape and self had twined into a fabric that was lasting, resounding, and full of grace."

Track Listing

101	The Needle's Eye	Margaret MacArthur	00:27
102	Carrion Crow	Margaret MacArthur	01:36
103	Gypsy Davy	Margaret MacArthur	01:57
104	Jennie Jenkins	Margaret MacArthur	02:00
105	Linktem Blue	Margaret MacArthur	00:20
106	Cherries Are Ripe	Margaret MacArthur	01:28
107	Trot Trot to Boston	Margaret MacArthur	00:53
108	This Very Unhappy Man	Margaret MacArthur	01:40
109	Aunt Jemima	Margaret MacArthur	01:15
110	Gorion-Og	Margaret MacArthur	03:57
111	The Scolding Wife	Margaret MacArthur	00:56
112	Riddles	Margaret MacArthur	00:24
201	Old Mr. Grumble	Margaret MacArthur	02:11
202	Single Again	Margaret MacArthur	01:21
203	New Hampshire Miller	Margaret MacArthur	03:03
204	What the Old Hen Said	Margaret MacArthur	01:15
205	Mother in the Graveyard	Margaret MacArthur	02:17
206	Marlboro Merchants	Margaret MacArthur	06:40