Newfoundland and Labrador’s folksong tradition is one of its greatest treasures. The province’s many professional folk musicians produce fabulous renditions of the songs, but maybe even more importantly, the songs are still heard in kitchens and sheds around the province, a living tradition sustained by amateur voices singing for the pure joy of it. The songs featured in these two arrangements, River Driver (originally titled The River Driver) and The Shabby Genteel, were collected in rural Newfoundland in the 1950s. The original recordings of these and hundreds of other folk songs may be heard in the archive Folk Songs of Atlantic Canada from the collections of MacEdward Leach.
