It started with trains. I loved model trains as a kid, and my dad and I would go stand by the railroad tracks in Oakland, CA to watch the real ones go by. When I moved to Walnut Creek, CA near the Iron Horse Trail, a former stretch of Southern Pacific tracks turned recreational path, I became fascinated with the railroad history of the area in the early to mid-20th century. It was strange to imagine people riding a train through our suburban community, but I liked the romantic notion of trains passing through the towns and fields, and I got to wondering about life in those days and the music one might have heard in local gathering spaces.
This curiosity led me to the WPA California Folk Music Project at the Library of Congress. There, I discovered the hundreds of recordings and hundreds more photos, drawings, and writings collected by ethnomusicologist Sidney Robertson from 1938 to 1940 in her quest to document the folk music practices of a diverse set of immigrant and migrant groups in the state. This collection, made with the support of the WPA, the Library of Congress, and the University of California, provided the snapshot into that past era that I was seeking.
In 2022, I received a Shenson Foundation Faculty Grant through my work as a woodwind instructor at the San Francisco Community Center. The Shenson grant supports a series of faculty concerts each year, and my idea was to create an event that brought songs from the WPA California Music Project collection to life through new performances by contemporary musical artists. Thus, my project “Tunes From Our Backyard” was born.
My fondest memory of preparing for the concert was trying to find somebody who could transcribe and translate “Oggi Penza Per Te” (Today, Think of Yourself), a Neapolitan song sung by Giuseppe Russo of Pittsburg, CA in 1939. Online, I found a Neapolitan translator, and I sent them the recording that Sidney Robertson had made. The translator wrote back asking if I had a more high-fidelity recording. Well…unfortunately not, I said, and that if it wasn’t possible to work from this recording, I understood if they needed to pass. The translator was insistent on figuring it out, and he did with great time, effort, and just a little help from modern audio technology!
I like to believe that, for the translator, Giuseppe Russo’s performance was personal. Perhaps he was determined to accomplish this task because “Oggi Penza Per Te” provided a link between two people, Russo and the Neapolitan translator, half a world away and nearly a century apart.
These kinds of reactions to the project are typical. It’s hard not to find a personal connection with some individual or place or song that Sidney Robertson encountered. For me, that personal connection was made in her many recordings of Armenian music in Fresno, CA. My maternal ancestors were Armenian immigrants that went to Fresno in the early 20th century before settling in San Francisco. In speaking with my family about those early days, the music, along with references to Armenian cultural life, are well familiar. These kinds of connections are what inspired me to continue “Tunes From Our Backyard.”
Our next event will be on Sunday, February 23, 2025, at 2pm at the Concord Historical Society. The event will feature vocalists Diana Gameros, Erasmo Aiello, and Emily Zisman recreating Spanish, Italian, and English songs recorded by Sidney Robertson in and around Concord, CA. The event will also present artifacts from the collection through compelling audio/visual content by Mark Dzula. I encourage anybody who loves music and California history to join us and discover their own personal connection to the enduring work of Sidney Robertson.
David Steinberg is the creator of “Tunes From Our Backyard: Songs of the WPA California Folk Music Project.” He also composes and produces music for media and teaches saxophone, clarinet, and flute at the San Francisco Community Music Center.