By Bradley Towle
WALTON — In the early 1960s, co-founder of Folk-Legacy Records Sandy Patton visited Walton, New York, to interview and record the music of Grant Rogers. Rogers was a "burly, barrel-chested guy" with "the rough hands of a stone cutter," according to Patton. Like his father before him, Rogers was a quarryman and never considered himself a folk singer. Rogers reportedly told Patton, "I'm not a folksinger… I'm a stone-cutter that makes up songs!" Despite Rogers' perception of himself, his meeting with Patton resulted in the 1965 album Songwriter of The Catskills: Grant Rogers of Walton, New York, which not only showcases Rogers' powerful voice and fiddle playing but also his ability to interpret existing folk songs as well as a knack for original songwriting.
For instance, Rogers' original song "The Legend of Slide Mountain" tells an invented mythology about how the Catskill High Peak got its name. Rogers told Patton he saw an opening for such a tale, which Patton included in his extensive liner notes for the album. "Everybody talks of Slide Mountain, asking 'why do they call it that? What does it do – slide?' Well, if it did, it wouldn't be there much longer, would it?" quipped Rogers at the time. "So, I came up with an idea that there has got to be a reason to call it Slide Mountain. I had people sliding off of it, you know. No, I never heard any story like that about it; I just made it up. My wife tells me, if I could make a living on imagination, I'd be a millionaire!" Rogers imagines a group of deputized men scrambling to get away from the gun-toting ex-wife of one of the posse, sliding and falling down the mountain in their frantic attempt to escape. Rogers claims in the song to have been told the tale by an old man who was "husband number six."
At the time of Patton's visit to Walton to record Grant Rogers, Rogers and his wife Edna, like many others in the area, were feeling the impact of the Cannonsville Dam project, which forced many from their lifelong homes to establish a reservoir to supply drinking water for New York City. "Grant and his wife, Edna, had to move out of the valley when this project got underway," wrote Patton. "Most of the people who have been forced to leave their valley homes are reconciled to the change. Grant and Edna are not immune to the sentiment one feels for one's lifetime home, but they have accepted the pressures of progress philosophically." Grant's acceptance and response to the event inspired his song "Cannonsville Dam."
We've been told we must leave our homes
From this valley we love so dear
To make room for the dam they're building here
To make room for the dam they're building here
Rogers does not shy away from the sadness involved with the forced relocation, but ultimately
reconciles the difficult position he and others in the community found themselves in by seeing it
as an act of sacrifice for the greater good.
If you ever met a little child
From you he isn't sure
If he asked you for some water
Would you turn him from your door?
Now, like him, there are countless thousands
Leaning on our guiding hand
All he wants is some water from our land
All he wants is some water from our land.
The story of an American town relocated and flooded in the name of progress is familiar throughout the 20th century and has been depicted in songs, films, and novels. Rogers' entry into the mix is valuable, as his song was written as construction crews built roads around his trailer in Walton for the dam's construction. His philosophical reconciliation with the circumstances also says quite a bit about who he might have been as a person. Songmaker of The Catskills remains available through Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. More information about Grant Rogers can be found at www.grantrogers.org.
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