A folk legend passes
Toolbox
By Joshua Larkin Times Argus Staff - Published: July 30, 2005
PLAINFIELD – Helen Bonchek Schneyer could belt out work songs, African American spirituals and hymns like few others. With an unmistakable contralto voice and the ability to pour her entire being into each song, she is one of folk music's most remarkable and beloved characters.
Known internationally for her emotionally charged renditions of traditional folk, labor and spiritual music, Helen Bonchek Schneyer died July 16 of cancer at the age of 84 at the Berlin Health and Rehabilitation Center.
Schneyer had a long music career, during which she performed for Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House, shared the stage with folk legends such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and served as a founding member of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, but friends and relatives remember her sense of humor, her strength of character and her ability to throw a really good party.
"Helen had a way of putting together a party that I think was unequaled in my experience," said longtime friend, Hilari Farrington. "She had a knack for bringing the right people together with just the right amount of food and drink. And there was always a lot of silliness and great music."
According to Farrington, after Schneyer moved to her Hollister Hill cabin in 1986, she began throwing parties for birthdays and holidays throughout the year. At the parties, 20 or more friends and fellow musicians would gather in Schneyer's warmly decorated home to laugh, joke and listen to the singer's stories of her travels and adventures, Farrington said. And at each of the shindigs, Schneyer was always a hoot and more than willing to laugh at herself.
"She was irreverent and at times profane, but she was always very funny," Farrington said.
Daughter Erika Schneyer said her mother loved anything absurd, from dirty jokes to slapstick comedy, and that side of her was present at every party the elder Schneyer ever threw, right up to her final minutes of life.
"She was just the funniest damn woman that I've ever known," Erika Schneyer said in a telephone interview. "Every holiday party we ever had degenerated into us throwing green beans and mashed potatoes or anything we had on hand."
But for every joke, prank or flung gob of food, Schneyer also had strong convictions about right and wrong and many of the politically hot topics of the 20th century. Erika Schneyer, who remembered picketing at age 8 for civil rights with her mother in 1961, said Helen cared immensely about "…some very profound things."
Born Helen Bonchek on Jan. 10, 1921, in New York, she was trained as a classical pianist and discovered the wonders of African American Baptist hymns while attending church services with her nanny at a young age. She graduated from the University of Buffalo, and after earning a master's degree in social work from Columbia University, moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where she lived off and on from the 1940s to 1986. While there, she practiced psychotherapy in Kensington, Md., and performed folk and work songs in the group the Priority Ramblers with folklorist Alan Lomax.
Folk musician and producer Martin Grosswendt said he met Schneyer years ago when he stayed with her for a year in her Kensington home. According to Grosswendt, Schneyer took in a lot of "strays" while living in Maryland, many of whom are some of folk, traditional and blues music's most famous names. Grosswendt said Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James and Joe Heaney were just a few who came to mind.
"The list of musicians who stayed overnight in her house, or came for holidays or for parties is amazing," Grosswendt said. "If you were to make a list, it would be like a who's who of American roots music."
Erika Schneyer remembers those times as well, recalling "running bourbon" to Hurt and James while they sat at her mother's piano.
"We just had parties where my mother would make a huge vat of spaghetti, and people would bring their own booze and people would just get sauced and make really great music," Schneyer said.
The parties, the strays and the time connecting with people from all walks of life allowed Schneyer to build a vast repertoire of songs that she would tap for performances.
"Her music was eclectic, but it was mostly taken out of tradition, both black and white tradition," said Joan Sprung, a close friend and fellow musician. "It was mostly focused on work songs, mining, fishing, labor songs."
But her humor also came through in some of the songs she chose to perform.
"And (there was) a genre of songs that she referred to as "hideobilia," as in memorabilia, except that these were the over the top songs like "Pity the Old Working Girl," Sprung said. "They were smaltz. They were the kind of thing that you would laugh you're head off, except that she sang them straight."
And by straight, Sprung means filled with pure emotion and heart.
Traditional singer Norman Kennedy of Marshfield described Schneyer's voice as "one of kind," recalling the feeling and power that she infused into every song she performed.
"I've seen her reduce an audience to tears," Kennedy said. "She'd be singing…and she felt the songs so strongly, sometimes even she'd have to stop and ask for a Kleenex."
Schneyer recorded three solo albums, "Ballads, Broadsides and Hymns" (1974), "On The Hallelujah Line" (1981) and "Somber, Silly and Sacred" (1992). A fourth live performance album, "What a Singing There Will Be," was recorded by Grosswendt at a Maple Corner show when Schneyer was 82 years old. The album is scheduled to be released next month.
And according to Leda Schubert, a friend and folk musician, Schneyer continued to sing and play into her final days.
"In fact, the day before she decided to cash it in, she said, 'Maybe I should have someone bring a keyboard into the nursing home,'" Schubert said. "My life will never be the same. I've known her for so long and I'm going to miss seeing her."
Along with daughter Erika Schneyer of Takoma Park, Md., she is survived by her son-in-law Milan Pavich and granddaughter Renata Ament, also of Takoma Park; her son, Joshua Schneyer of Santa Barbara, Calif.; sister, Mona Wasow of Madison, Wis.; brother Donald Cantor of Boston, Mass.; and several nieces, nephews and beloved friends. A memorial service will be held in Plainfield later this summer.
Contact Joshua Larkin at joshua.larkin@timesargus.com, or, call 479-0191 ext. 1153
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