Peggy Lynn

 

I caught up with Adirondack folk musician Peggy Lynn at Camp Huntington, in the heart of the Adirondacks. Peggy has been making a living through her music for twenty plus years.  She is beautiful, talented and has an absolutely gorgeous voice that is both strong and delicate. She wavers and slides and holds her own gentle vibrato in this northern country and does the music more than justice.

Peggy started playing the guitar when she was twenty years old. Her older brother was a popular tenor when she was growing up and she never wanted to be compared to him, but the music was living in her too. She was often asked, she said, to sit in with folk performers and so she naturally picked up the guitar and taught herself to play it. She started writing songs and at the age of 32 recorded her first album. Her website, http://www.quercusmusic.com/music, shows ten albums to her credit to date.

She is an Adirondack woman. She frequents places like this one, Camp Huntington, and other of the Great Adirondack Camps.

I was fortunate to be at two performances here with her, where she graciously asked me to sit in. The first performance she was accompanying her husband, Dan Duggan, master hammered dulcimer player and nationally touring artist and educator. While I was sitting in with the duo, and Dan was calling out dances, Peggy leans over to me and says, "I'd rather be dancing." Soon after, she did just that. She got up and led one of the dances. The two brought a good old fashioned super fun time to many people who have never had the pleasure of olde time dances before.

Two nights later, Peggy led a song circle, her beautiful voice filling the room. Every note hanging in on the birch bark ceiling like it was a deliberate decoration of the Adirondack camp.

Most interestingly to me, is that Peggy has an entire album about Adirondack women. She relayed to me how after she wrote her first song about an unsung Adirondack woman, Lydia Smith, wife of the Adirondack legend Paul Smith, of Paul Smith College namesake. Lydia, apparently had been the driving force behind most, if not all, of her husband's endeavors: making investments, teaching their sons how to run the hotel, and many other behind the scenes, but vital doings that made her husband the highly respected man he was. Nobody every said anything about Lydia, until Peggy Lynn wrote a song about her. Since then, audience members and others have encouraged Peggy to write about other formerly unsung Adirondack heroines. She has an entire album about these women. The music is authentic and at times breathtaking, and the lyrics are humorous and poetic.

Peggy Lynn is about as authentic as it gets: she lives in the Adirondacks, writes music about the Adirondacks and performs in the Adirondacks. She is keeping the Adirondack traditional music scene alive by her contributions and preserving the old songs as well. She is a gem of traditional music and culture.