Carrie Blanche Grover (née Spinney; 1879–1959) was a Canadian folk singer, fiddler, and folk song collector. She was a recognized authority on folk music, whose songs were recorded for the Library of Congress by both

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

and Sidney Robertson Cowell.

Early life

Carrie Spinney was born in Nova Scotia in 1879, where she lived until the age of 12. She was the daughter of George Craft Spinney and Eliza Long. The family moved to Maine and she attended

Gould Academy Gould Academy is a private, co-ed, college preparatory boarding and day school founded in 1836 and located in the small town of Bethel, Maine, United States. History In 1835 citizens of Bethel, Maine, formed an organization as trustees of the ...

. Fred Lincoln Hill described Grover as coming:

from a family of farmers, mill-owners and loggers. Her ancestors came to Nova Scotia before the American Revolution and included English, Scotch, Welsh and Irish people. They seem to have been a family of singers on both paternal and maternal sides.

Carrie married Almon Roy Grover in 1896, and settled in Gorham. The couple had three children: Gertrude, Ethel, and Roy.

Folk songs

Having gained a reputation as a folk singer, in 1941, she recorded 87 songs and fiddle tunes for the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Congress reported: "Mrs. Grover sat before the microphone and recorded twenty-six discs. Some of her ballads date back a hundred years or more." Recordings of Grover also formed part of the

Eloise Hubbard Linscott Eloise Hubbard Linscott (December 29, 1897 – 1978) was a 20th-century American folklorist, song collector, and preservationist. She is the author of ''Folk Songs of Old New England'' (1939), considered a valuable scholarly source for American f ...

collection. She was the only woman among the several New England fiddlers included, and Linscott was especially proud to have collected from her. Linscott wrote admiringly that "what she didn't sing she played on her fiddle from a repertoire of more than 400 songs”. Grover corresponded extensively with Alan Lomax, Sidney Robertson Cowell, and

Helen Creighton Mary Helen Creighton, CM (September 5, 1899 – December 12, 1989) was a prominent Canadian folklorist. She collected over 4,000 traditional songs, stories, and beliefs in a career that spanned several decades, and she published many books and ar ...

. In 1953, Grover gathered around 140 songs for self-publication. Helping her was Fred Lincoln Hill, who described the songs as ranging "from those of her grandparents and those her mother and father sang, to those which her brothers learned as lumbermen and sailors on the coasting vessels of that period."

The book may never get any further than being a family record of many of the old tunes. But as such it is a permanent account of the music and lives of the people who knew the songs and sang them at their work, or in the evenings when folks gathered for a “sing” and each member of the company present sang their favorites. Perhaps the voices were not always true to key, but if those of Mrs. Grover and her family are examples there must have been many fine voices raised in the songs of long ago.

Carrie Grover’s ''A Heritage of Songs'' was published by Gould Academy when Carrie was in her 70s, first intended to capture the songs for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. "Because she feels so strongly that the old songs should not be allowed to die," Hill wrote, "Mrs. Grover has made heroic efforts to preserve the tunes. There are many collections of the verses but not many which include a tune for every poem.

Death

Grover died in 1959 aged 79. She was buried in Eastern Cemetery, Gorham, alongside her husband.

References

External links

The Carrie Grover Project

Carrie B. Grover
at WorldCat
Carrie B. Grover
at the Folk Music Performer Index {{DEFAULTSORT:Grover, Carrie 1879 births 1959 deaths Canadian folk-song collectors Canadian folk fiddlers 20th-century Canadian women musicians Singers from Nova Scotia People from Gorham, Maine Canadian emigrants to the United States 20th-century Canadian musicologists