Red Heart Falters in Margaret MacArthur Tribute

RED HEART THE TICKER

Your Name in Secret I Would Write

Auger Down Records 008

*

The late Margaret MacArthur (d. 2006) was one of my favorite people. She was a kind, generous soul who found more value in the simple things of life than most folks could get from a pile of gold. In the 1940s the Ozarks-born MacArthur moved to Vermont and began collecting folksongs, both from the archives and from people she discovered in the hills and along the back roads. Her 1962 Folksongs of Vermont is rightly regarded as a Green Mountain treasure.

If ever there was a CD I wanted to love, Your Name in Secret I Would Write is it. The record consists of plus two field recordings Margaret made in 1961, plus ten of her favorite songs. The latter are performed by a duo calling itself (rather cumbersomely in my view) Red Heart the Ticker. It consists of Margaret’s granddaughter, Robin MacArthur, and her husband, Tyler Gibbons. They have a good feel for old-time music but, alas, not for Margaret’s repertoire. When these songs were collected, Margaret made the conscious decision to present them unadorned. She was, in many ways, the last generation of what used to be called “source singers.” Although a handful of performers--Tim Eriksen springs to mind--continue the stark ballad tradition, unless you’ve got pipes like Eriksen’s, it’s hard to engage audiences these days without more polish and a lot more instrumentation than was expected during the Folk Revival.

There are three problems with Your Name. The first is that the album is neither this nor that. When you have old-time material, it works best to be either a conduit or an innovator. I had hopes that Red Heart would be the second, based on the opening track, “Mother’s in the Graveyard,” in which Robin MacArthur’s dry voice intones atop the drone of an Estey pump organ. It’s easily the album’s best track. The experimentation of the opening track quickly became formula, with other instruments taking on the organ role. And here is where the second problem emerges: Robin’s voice has different qualities than Margaret’s. It is, simply, not clear enough to carry stripped-to-the-bones story songs. If we can’t make out the lyrics of a ballad, they mostly become just long songs with inconsequential melodies. The third problem exacerbates the second--the recording is muddy and the balances are off. “Carrion Crow,” for instance, has parts in which residual ringing from the instruments nearly obliterates the vocals.

Some times being a reviewer sucks. I loved Margaret and continue to indulge in love affair with Vermont, whose arts council (along with the NEA) helped underwrite this project. I wanted to tell you that Margaret MacArthur’s torch is being carried by a new generation. But as a reviewer, I have a duty to say that this album simply isn’t very good.