Newfoundland Traditional Song: The Legacy from the English West Country

• Main Author: Gregory, David
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Canadian Society for Traditional Music / La Société canadienne pour les traditions musicales 2004
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MC/article/view/21608

Writing about the history of Newfoundland popular song before the twentieth century is difficult because of the paucity of primary sources. Little song collecting appears to have taken place there before the 1920s. Focusing on the legacy from Victorian England, this paper examines traditional song as an aspect of the cultural connection between Newfoundland and the four counties of the English West Country. It offers a methodology for determining which songs were likely to have been sung in Newfoundland outports during the latter half of the nineteenth century.