Walt Robertson had a profound effect on the entire course of my life.In 1952 I was attending the University of Washington, majoring in English Literature with vague notions of becoming a writer; but not doing much writing except for class assignments and sometimes not even then. I was keeping steady company with a young woman named Claire. I had never heard of Walt Robertson, but just a week or two before I met her, Claire had heard him play guitar and sing at a party. She became so enthusiastic about folk songs that she took the old George Washburn "Ladies Model" guitar her grandmother had given her and set about learning to play it, so she could accompany the folk songs she was eagerly learning.
I heard that Walt Robertson would be singing an informal concert at The Chalet, a restaurant in the University District where aspiring artists, writers, and musicians gathered. Jazz musicians often got together there on Friday or Saturday nights to jam (since they didn't have a cabaret license, The Chalet would officially close, but the door was left unlocked) . I was an avid opera fan at the time (even took a few voice lessons), but I enjoyed the songs that Claire sang -- especially listening to her sing them. I told her of Walt Robertson's concert and asked her to go with me. Although I was looking forward to hearing the folksinger who had impressed Claire so much, my main purpose was to ingratiate myself with her.
I had no idea that this particular evening was going to be a major turning point in my life.
I am currently writing a "memoir" or series of reminiscences about the folk music "scene" in the Fifties and Sixties as I saw it and remember it. I would like to post what I have written about the first time I saw and heard Walt Robertson. It's fairly lengthy, about 800 words. But with your kind indulgence. . . .
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When Claire and I arrived at The Chalet, the CLOSED sign was on the door. We pushed it open and walked in. A crowd was beginning to gather.
In the kitchen and up by the door the lights were still on, but those in the long, main room had been turned out. The area was illuminated by candlelight. Some of the tables and chairs had been shifted from their accustomed locations. In one corner, a table had been placed diagonally, with a chair facing it. Immediately in front stood a smaller table with a row of four lighted candles on it. It had been reserved as a sort of improvised stage. Claire and I managed to find a table fairly close. Lucky, because the tables were quickly filling up.
After some minutes, a hush fell over the place. Then, a slender young man with dark hair and glasses came out of the back hallway and walked briskly toward the table in the corner. He carried a guitar. A very big guitar. He sat on the edge of the table, propped his feet on the chair, and positioned the guitar in his right leg. Like improvised footlights, the four candles illuminated him from below, casting huge, trembling shadows on the wall behind him.
He took his glasses off, put them on the table, and glanced quickly around the room. His face was thin, almost hawk-like. His eyes were piercing and intense. A half-smile crossed his face. His hands hovered over the strings of the guitar.
Candlelight shimmered along the gleaming steel strings. A concave cut in the guitar's oversized tuning head gave an impression of devil's horns. Two rows of tuning keys resembled shark's teeth. I had never seen a 12-string guitar before. Nor, I think, had anyone else there. It looked downright sinister.
His hands began to move. A strong, pulsing rhythm rang out from that big guitar--deep, insistent, and driving, like the rolling rhythm of a locomotive. His voice, clear and robust, pealed out through the room:
When John Henry was a little baby,
Sittin' on his mammy's knee. . . .
I had never heard that song before. A few of the songs he sang that night, I had heard, on records by Burl Ives or Richard Dyer-Bennet; or they were songs Claire sang or was learning; songs like Lord Randal, The E-ri-e Canal, Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies, and Venezuela. But there were many, many others, like The Midnight Special, High Barbaree, Evil Hearted Man, Bile Them Cabbage Down, The Golden Vanity, Black is the Color, Blow Ye Winds . . . dozens of songs I had never heard. Nor, for that matter, had most of the people there that night.
These days, almost five decades later, John Henry is considered such an old war-horse that it's been banished from the repertoire, and you never hear it sung anymore. The same is true for many of the songs Walt Robertson sang that night.
I had never heard a guitar played like that, either. A few songs along, Walt mentioned that he had just got the 12-string and was still trying to get used to it, but it already seemed to do his bidding. For sea chanteys or chain gang songs, he summoned forth powerful, driving rhythms. For love songs or ballads, the sound he drew from those powerful double strings was gentle, almost like the sound of a harpsichord.
He sang for nearly three hours that evening, weaving tapestries of song and story, evoking ancient images and emotions that seemed to emerge from the Unconscious or from some genetic memory trace: medieval castles looming above cold and misty moors; the suffocating claustrophobia of a coal mine; wind and salt spray on the heaving deck of a whaling ship; the sweat, dust, and boredom of the cattle trail; the roar of cannon, flame and smoke erupting from the gun ports of pirate galleons; the agony of love betrayed, and the joys, both bawdy and profound, of love shared; the gleeful nonsense and fresh wonder of children's songs and rhymes . . . dream visions and antique echoes. And somehow, shadows from within my own soul.
I was enthralled. Spellbound.
* * *
Up to that time I had never seriously considered becoming any kind of a musician. Taking singing lessons was fun; futzing around with the guitar was fun, but . . . now, suddenly, it all took on a whole new dimension.
* * *
One afternoon a few days later, I ran into Walt in The Chalet. We talked for awhile. Then I asked him if he would teach me to play the guitar. He said he didn't really regard himself as a teacher, but he did give lessons once in a while and he would try to show me what he could.
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And that's how I got started.
There is much more I wish to say about Walt. But that's enough for now.
Don Firth
Addendum -- Walt Robertson discography:
The old vinyl records (Folkways library editions) are
American Northwest Ballads, Folkways Records FP 46 (1955 - 10" lp w/notes)
Walt Robertson (in large print) Sings American Folk Songs (in smaller print), Folkways Records FA 2330 (1959 - 12" lp w/notes)
Available through Smithsonian Folkways are
Smithsonian FolkwaysRobertson, Walt
- American Northwest Ballads (1955) F-2046 (Cassette, $10.95; CD, $19.95)
- Sings American Folk Songs (1959) F-2330 (Cassette, $10.95; CD, $19.95)(You can hear snippets of American Northwest Ballads cuts by going to the Smithsonian Folkways website, clicking on the "Liquid Audio" link, locating Walt Robertson on the list, clicking on that, then click on the Liquid Audio icon by whichever one(s) you want to hear. Takes a few seconds to download.
Article on Walt Robertson by Don Firth: https://pnwfolklore.org/wp/index.php/walt-robinson-american-folksinger-by-don-firth/