Here is one of my favorite songs to sing--House of the Rising Sun. I recently realized that I didn't have many pictures that included me--mostly because I am the one taking the picture. So here are a few with just me or me and some friends (or relatives) just for fun. Enjoy!
Some years ago I wrote a song titled When I Wanted Warm. We need to show the Earth the warmth of our love rather than the coldness of our neglect and abuse of her bounty. We need to protect our planet and stop global warming.
Some years ago I wrote a song called simply "Daughter."
When my oldest brother, Dick, died I knew he held a strong faith that he would be going to a better world. I am reminded of the folksong Wayfaring Stranger, a song of comfort in these difficult times..
Years ago, one of my brothers offered some practical advice that has become for me a comforting metaphor and prompted me to write this song, “How to Fall.”
This is a song I wrote back in the 1960s. It incorporates a lot of story motifs that I recalled from my favorite fairytale collection, East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon.
When I was a child, my grandmother lived next door to us, and I remember bringing her a small basket of flowers (usually wild violets and dandelions) on the first day of May.
I wrote the song “The First One” for my mother. After attending college, she married and had five children. I was the fourth. My life has been immensely blessed by having her as my mother and guiding light.
He has betrayed us, our nation, and the world. In the biblical phrase, he has sown discord and an ill wind, and we are left in sorrow to reap little beyond a damaging whirlwind.
This video includes a song I wrote based on the opening line of Psalm 130. I believe we can expect to find peace only if and when we ensure justice for all our people.
Here is a song I wrote when I was around 20 years old, still in college, unmarried, wondering what life held in store.
Though Juneteenth (June 19th) is a day of celebration, it is also a reminder of how much suffering has been and continues to be caused by racism in America and throughout the world.
My father, Charles E. Dolby, was born and grew up in Huntington County. His parents were Frank and Gertrude (Beghtel) Dolby. For most of his adult life he lived on Vine Street in Huntington. This folksong, The Great Silkie, tells of a mythical father in Norway.
Some years ago I wrote a song about this melancholy experience of letting a relationship melt away from the intensity of a powerful, burning love to that instead of a treasured, remembered love. Mementos keep them in my life, and now, in my more mature years, I do indeed hold their love in my heart like gold.
People in positions of power who turn their backs on the people who have helped make this an admired and potent nation remind me of the skipper in The Golden Vanity, a folksong from the days of sailing ships. The foe is no longer some mythical “Turkish enemy” but rather our own leaders who fail to protect, serve, and cherish the people of this democracy. Vote them out.
Professor Geoffrey Joyce wrote an article for The Conversation July 8, 2020, titled “5 COVID-19 Myths Politicians have repeated that just aren’t true.” I adapt his “ 5 myths” here and call out the current administration for offering our people tall tales instead of the truth.
I took the liberty of reinterpreting what the House of the Rising Sun might be.
Misery is inevitable when people are forced to leave loved ones, for whatever reason. We fail as a nation when we force such separations rather than finding ways to help people stay together and safe. Irving Berlin's song from a century ago speaks to this current kind of separation misery.
Valentine’s Day always makes me think of the various stories, movies, and songs I associate with love relationships—and also simply ones that make me feel glad to be here. May you have a Happy Valentine’s Day and remember fondly your own list of things that you enjoy.
Some years ago I wrote a song celebrating some of the outstanding graduate students who chose to study folklore, a relatively small field of research and ethnography that grew in part from the early efforts of the Grimm Brothers. Folklorists attend to and value what ordinary people create and treasure.
I share this old ballad and some photos as a tribute to some of the many people I have enjoyed singing with over the years. Thanks, everyone. Singing together is such a joy!
Going to college, getting married, having a child, starting a career—those are the kinds of things that young people often find urging them on with hope toward the future.
I invite you to join Ilze Akerbergs, Greg Philippsen, and me in singing this old African-American spiritual Michael Row the Boat Ashore in memory of all those we have lost.
Please join me in steering clear of the wind.
There is an old bit of folklore that claims women shouldn’t whistle—i.e., “A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to no good end.” But I don’t believe it.
It is so sad that we lost her much, much too soon. Missing you as always, dear Shelley. Love, Sandy
“Avoid the thorn, pluck the rose.” The allegorical character Pleasure sings the song, hoping to tempt the heroine Beauty into a life of pleasant diversion rather than virtuous truth-seeking.
Thanksgiving 2020 is going to be a much-reduced affair for most of us, but here is a little reminder of how it has been in years gone by.
Back in the late 1800s Christina Rossetti wrote a long poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and then later Gustav Holst (of The Planets fame) wrote a melody that is usually associated with the piece. Though occasionally found in some hymnals, the song is not as familiar as other Christmas carols.
Oh, Christmas Tree—the song that is now a Christmas carol began as a German folk song that celebrates the fir tree—a symbol of faithfulness and constancy.
This pandemic year has given me a different kind of Auld Lang Syne—a lonely one, yes, but one that recalls in this unusual way some of the wonderful people in my life.
There is nothing to ease that pain, but singing my grief is my own means of comfort. Here is an African American folksong that brings some solace to me.
As the young boy learns in this song by Michael Merchant, we need to live our lives every day.
I wrote the song "Man of No Dreams" with many of Violet Moore Higgins's images in my head.
“How To Fall”—a song I wrote for my brother Steve’s birthday many years ago. He was the middle child in our piano bench line-up—the sweet and funny one, all his life. Sadly, we lost him to cancer long, long before we should have. Steve—much loved and sorely missed.
“The Derby Ram” is an old English folksong that claims our amazing ram has a tail that reaches from the Midlands in England all the way over to St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ireland and rings its bell. It’s a fun song, best as a sing-along. Please join in.
We need to hear songs that cry out for a friend as exactly that—pleas for our fellow humans to befriend each other.
My earliest memories of my father, Charles Dolby, are of him building things.
I was reminded of Handel’s wonderful aria from Serse in which King Xerxes sings of his love for a beautiful plane tree. Trees are sources of oxygen and collectors of carbon dioxide. They are the treasures that may save us from our careless abuse of the planet.
That is life’s gift to us—the treasure of that enduring connection. This song is for our friends and teachers—wherever we find them.
I created this song when the Twin towers were struck in 2001. I feel equal dismay now as Putin’s Russia attacks Ukraine. We need peace, not war, democracy, not tyrants.
This sad song by Irving Berlin always makes me think of how often families must separate—through deaths, through wars, sometimes through hard decisions that force parting ways.
I really hate the prospect of war anywhere. I admire the Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s invasion of their nation. I hope their leaders and people are able to push back the invaders. Here is my song supporting that leadership.
One of the oldest ballads still popular around Christmastime is “The Cherry Tree Carol.”
I cannot help but express my dismay at Trump’s re-election. I chose this traditional spiritual to express my grief.
There have been a lot of songs, books, movies, and sermons about life after death. A song that captures much of the feeling behind such materials is the gospel song “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”
My former colleague, Bill Wiggins, wrote a book about Juneteenth--O Freedom!. And Sam Cooke wrote a song the expresses the hope we should all share. I'll sing the song for you here. Read the book if you have a chance.
Dona nobis pacem—Latin for “grant us peace.” My wish for this holiday season is that our dear and fragile human world learns to live peacefully together. My friend Ilze joins me on this lovely traditional round. All the best to you and yours.
Winters here in Indiana have become milder as climate change has affected the seasons, but when I was young and living in northern Indiana, you could still find ponds to skate on part of the year. My middle brother, Steve, taught me to ice skate and gave me some good, practical advice—try to relax as you fall. I regard his advice as a good metaphor for life in general, so a few years ago I wrote this song highlighting that advice. I hope you enjoy it.
Though it is painful to see the wounds our world has suffered, continues to suffer—still I am thankful that I have had this chance to experience life in this amazing universe. Happy Thanksgiving!
This is a medley of some of the many Christmas songs my friend Ilze Akerbergs and I have recorded over the last decade or so. Nearly all of the instrumentation is Ilze, and she is the one who knew how to splice together bits from each song into a single piece. I hope you enjoy the medley.
This is a medley from the first Christmas CD Ilze Akerbergs and I made back in 2010. After fifteen years of creating annual albums to send out to friends and family at Christmastime, we have decided to take a break. But here is a medley from that first year. We hope you enjoy it.
