Music has always been part of the camp experience because educators and camp leaders understood its power to evoke deep feelings of community and solidarity. Although songs appear from time to time in The Islander (see, for example, ), it was not until the 1960s that the camp began producing an annual songbook.

Before the 1960s, camps could draw on a broadly shared musical culture that had been propagated through the public and private schools and through community groups as part of the vital civic culture that characterized American public life in the first half of the twentieth century. Everyone knew old standards like "The Ash Grove," "Tenting Tonight," "Casey Jones," "Johnny Comes Marching Home," and "Clementine" so well that they didn't need song books.

The rediscovery (or, more accurately), the invention of "folk music" and the revolution in popular music in which rock emerged from race and hillbilly commercial music subcultures was symptomatic of a broader transformation and fragmentation of public culture. Thanks to groups like the Weavers and individual artists like Pete Seeger, Americans -- especially people in academic communities -- came to know songs like Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene," spirituals like "Ezekial Saw the Wheel," and Joseph Marais's "Pity the Poor Pitat." The first AIC we have on file, which dates from the summer of 1962, (to see it, click this link 1962songbook.html), is a pristine document of this first wave of the folk revival.

By the mid-sixties, the musical scene had become infinitely richer. The influence of the Weavers, Marias & Miranda, Peter Seeger, and Burl Ives remained evident in such selections as "Delia," "I Never Will Marry," "Sari Marais," "Venezulela," and "Lonesome Traveller," new voices were also evident, particularly the New Lost City Ramblers ("Late Last Night," "Banks of the Ohio," "George Collins," "Lady of Carlisle") and Canadian singers, Ian & Sylvia ("Handsome Molly," "Pride of Petrovar," "Rocks and Gravel," "That's What You Get for Loving Me," "Little Beggerman"). It also featured material from Joan Baez ("Geordie"), Ewen McCall ("Springhill Mining Disaster), Bob Dylan ("Mr. Tamborine Man"), Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs ("Salty Dog"), Clarence Ashley ("The Cuckoo"), Jim Kweskin's Jug Band ("Relax Your Mind"), the Beach Boys ("Long Tall Texan"), and the Golden Ring ("Captain Kidd").

The range of instruments campers and counsellors played broadened. By the mid-sixties, guitars, banjos, Carl Chase's celebrated double bass -- fabricated of marine plywood in the AIC shop -- and Annie Meyer's sweet Appalachian dulcimer were regularly featured at camp sing-alongs.

To print this songbook, use the print utility on your web browser. If it does not print legibly, please let me know <pd_hall@harvard.edu>!