Listen To The Songs Of Old New Hampshire

Music can take us away, or bring us back to a much simpler time.

New Hampshire Humanities Council presenter Jeff Warner will be connecting 21st century audiences with the music of everyday lives of 19th century people with the Songs of Old New Hampshire tonight.

The free concert will be performed in the Johnson Meeting Room from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Warner is a Folklorist and Community Scholar for the New Hampshire Council on the Arts and has been names a 2007 State Arts Council Fellow. He has toured nationally for the Smithsonian Institution and has recorded for Flying Fish/Rounder Records and other labels. 

Drawing heavily on the repertoire of traditional singer Lena Bourne Fish (1873-1945) of Jaffrey and Temple, New Hampshire, Warner offers the songs and stories that tell a story of where we came from and how we got here. These ballads, love songs, and comic pieces reveal the experiences and emotions of daily life in the days before the movies, sound recordings, and for some, books.

Songs from lumber camps, the decks of sailing ships, the textile mills and the war between the sexes offer views of pre-industrial New England, and a chance to hear living artifacts from the 18th and 19th centuries. He presents musical traditions from the Outer Banks fishing villages of North Carolina to the lumber camps of the Adirondack Mountains and the whaling ports of New England.

Warner accompanies his songs on concertina, banjo, guitar, and several 'pocket instruments,' such as bones and Jew's harp.

This event is part of the library's series for adults called Right Here in New Hampshire. It has been made possible through grant from the New Hampshire Humanities Council.