Bec's Videos

Margaret's Waltz Trailer posted: 1/14/2008

About Margaret's Waltz posted: 1/14/2008 My first foray as a filmaker won the Northeast Alliance for Community Media's Best Documentary Event for 2007. "Margaret's Waltz," a mostly musical tribute to Vermont folk music treasure Margaret MacArthur premired at Indi-Con in Burlington in November. It's packed with concert footage and interviews taken during two tributes to Vermont folksong collector and performer Margaret MacArthur who passed away in 2006. Featured performers include: The Boys of the Lough, Gordon Bok, the MacArthur Family, Skip Gorman, Tany Barrand, Pete & Karen Sutherland, Deb Flanders and more. Come watch it Jan. 18th at 8 p.m. in Burlington, VT at North End Studio, 294 N. Winooski Ave. for directions call 802-863-6686. $5 suggested donation. Also on the screen that night will be "Winooski: City of Reinvention," the winner of the Northeast ACM's Documentary Profile category produced by my pal Jess Wilson of CCTV Productions and featuring music by Pete Sutherland.

Margaret's Waltz VT Screening posted: 2/5/2008 The Vermont ACM Winner's Screening in Burlington went great. If you missed it, you can still hear an interview with me about the film on Public Radio's Vermont Edition here.

Documentary celebrates musical legacy of folk singer Margaret MacArthur posted: 1/7/2008 Published: Sunday, January 6, 2008 in The Burlington Free Press By Susan Green Free Press Correspondent In an era when Britney Spears can dominate the news, the quiet modesty of a Margaret MacArthur is likely to go largely unnoticed by the popular culture. The folksinger and folklorist, who died at age 78 in May 2006, spent most of her life tapping into a more enduring culture. While raising five children in an 1802 Marlboro farmhouse, she somehow found time to immerse herself in musical traditions that span centuries and traverse continents. Apparently no place, though, inspired this ardent "songcatcher" as much as the state where she took up residence exactly six decades ago. That devotion was already evident in her first album, recorded for the Folkways label in 1962: "Ballads of Vermont." MacArthur's significant contribution to the genre is conveyed in "Margaret's Waltz," an award-winning new documentary by Rebecca Padula of Hinesburg. The 90-minute film, which chronicles two 2007 tribute concerts, will screen on Jan. 18 in Burlington. "I never knew Margaret well," explains Padula, who is a performer in her own right and channel coordinator at Lake Champlain Access Television in Colchester. "I was more of a fan." Nonetheless, she didn't hesitate when asked to tape the two shows produced in Marlboro and Middlebury last March by folk impresario Mark Sustic of Fletcher. "He said it might be a cool, documentary kind of thing," Padula, 37, recalls. "I was determined to document it in some way," says Sustic, who befriended MacArthur in the 1970s. "In my mind, this was a continuation of Margaret's legacy of documenting folk music, as well as a way for people who couldn't be there to enjoy the concerts." The idea to give the project even more of a flourish, with archival material and interviews, came from Dave Richardson. He's a veteran of the legendary Boys of the Lough, some of MacArthur's oldest and dearest pals. The Celtic band played at both performances. On camera, Richardson remembers how they would stop at MacArthur's home in between gigs around the country during the early 1970s to share music, "eat great food, drink their homemade beer and everything was wonderful." She later toured with them in the Scottish Highlands. "Margaret's Waltz" is a title Padula borrowed from an instrumental number the Boys often perform. Maine-based Gordon Bok is another folk luminary on stage and in the film. Ditto for Pete and Karen Sutherland of Vergennes. Three of MacArthur's grown children, who regularly accompanied her, also join in the festivities. "One of the highlights of this experience for me was to hang out as everyone was jamming," Padula acknowledges. Despite much wonderful humor and some breathtaking musicianship, the proceedings harbor a sense of loss. MacArthur's death came within a week after she was diagnosed with a rare brain affliction called Jacob Kreutzfeld Disease, according to Sustic. The concerts were part of Events for Tom, an ongoing benefit series he has organized since his young son succumbed to leukemia in 2001. British-born Tony Barrand, a southern Vermonter perhaps best known for his "Nowell Sing We Clear" holiday extravaganzas but now battling multiple sclerosis, sings heartily as ever from a wheelchair. He delivers a melody, written by Malvina Reynolds of "Little Boxes" fame. It describes a neighbor's baby being born while Barrand and longtime musical cohort John Roberts were driving her to the hospital from MacArthur's farm. This is the sort of personal touch that makes "Margaret's Waltz" rather riveting. In snippets from a 1999 interview, the low-key MacArthur is seen talking about the harps, zithers and dulcimers she collected. Yet Padula points out that her film is not a straightforward biography. "I tried to pack as much information about Margaret as I could, but it's mostly the concerts," she concedes. "I needed a narrow focus." Although MacArthur's childhood as the daughter of a forester in Arizona and Missouri is briefly mentioned, her adult existence -- Vermont wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and influential folk figure -- receives more attention. She was passionate about the efforts of pioneering musicologist Helen Hartness Flanders, who made 4,500 field recordings of rural ballads during her travels around the Green Mountain State from 1930 to 1958. MacArthur added many of them to her extensive repertoire. She recorded 11 albums; co-authored the seminal "Vermont Heritage Song Book" in 1994; was named a New England Living Art Treasure by the University of Massachusetts a year later; and, in 2005, debuted at the Kennedy Center and Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Frequently dubbed "Vermont's First Lady of Folk," MacArthur championed the sort of oral history that enriches contemporary society. One of her favorite compositions, "The Marlboro Medley," dates back to 1787 and includes a dozen verses about rural life. But Sustic suspects "Maple Sweet," by a 19th-century Vermont poet named Perrin Fisk, probably was MacArthur's signature song. That may be why, as both shows were about to end, all the folkies assembled to belt out the ode to syrup: "Then, bubble bubble bubble, bubble bubble goes the pan.Furnish better music for the season if you can. See the golden billows, watch their ebb and flow. Sweetest joys indeed we sugar makers know." Proceeds from the concerts helped to preserve the Margaret MacArthur archives at Middlebury's Vermont Folklife Center, which co-produced the concerts with Sustic. Padula, a St. Michael's College journalism major who spent a few years after graduation in 1992 as a print reporter, honed her cinematic skills by creating LCATV programs. She has documented local activities, such as the Colchester Bookmobile and the restoration of an historic one-room schoolhouse. "The Instant Coffeehouse," her half-hour show that presents musicians in the studio and out in the community, is enjoying its third season on the public access station. "Margaret's Waltz," which Padula shot on digital video, earned an award from the Northeast Alliance for Community Media in November. When not behind a camera, Padula is a professional singer and guitarist. "It was seeing folk music live that got me hooked," she says of her attraction to the art form while still a student. "Unlike rock 'n' roll, you get up close. Plus, both folk and journalism are about storytelling." The story of Margaret MacArthur haunts those who admired her. "When I moved here, she was one of only a few people I knew," says Sustic, who had met her a few years earlier while he was attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "When I started the Welcome Table, a folk series at the College Street Congregational Church in Burlington, Margaret was the first person to perform. And she was always the first person I thought of booking for the Champlain Valley Folk Festival." Just a month before she died, MacArthur trekked to the FlynnSpace to participate in one of Sustic's Events for Tom concerts. At the Queen City venue, Vermont's First Lady of Folk enchanted an audience for the last time.

About the Instant Coffeehouse posted: 1/14/2008 "The Instant Coffeehouse" can now be seen on several stations in VT and one in MA. The monthly half-hour program, which I produce and direct, showcases singer-songwriters and has featured: Ani Difranco , Gregory Douglass , Rachel Bissex , Jan Smith , Martha's Trouble , Erica Wheeler , Diane Zeigler , Anais Mitchell , Delicious Blues Stew , Rik Palieri , Rebecca Hall & Ken Anderson , Wilfried Mengs , Anne Weiss , Karen McFeeters , Lisa Piccirillo , Richard Ruane & Beth Duquette , Chip Wilson , Susannah Blachly ,and all the way from Scotland Emily Smith , and North Sea Gas . Our community access television affiliates are: Lake Champlain Access Television 15 in Colchester, VT; MMCTV 15 in Richmond,VT; Channel 37 in Stowe, VT; VCAM 15 in the greater Burlington VT area, ORCA Media of Montpelier, VT; NEATV in Bristol, VT; NEK TV in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, Greater Northshire Access in the Manchester, VT area and Grafton Community Access in my hometown of Grafton, MA. To sponsor syndication on your local access station contact rebecca@lcatv.org.

The Dreamsicles posted: 12/1/2007

Whistle Me Dixie posted: 6/1/2007

Less posted: 6/1/2007