The Langley Schools Music Project, Innocence & Despair (Bar/None)
reviewed by Erin Hucke
Once upon a time in the late 1970s, there was a young elementary school
music teacher in rural Canada named Hans Fenger. Fenger, who was somewhat
inexperienced as a teacher and who previously had been a struggling rock
musician, taught his students the joys of music through material the
children loved to sing, the pop songs of their day. The kids sang songs from
The Beach Boys and Wings. They sang songs from Fleetwood Mac and the Bay
City Rollers. Fenger and nearly 150 fourth through seventh graders from the
four schools where he taught eventually recorded the songs in a gymnasium
with poor acoustics on a two-track recorder using only two microphones. The
music was released on two separate vinyl LPs in 1976 and 1977 for the
students, parents and faculty of the schools.
Then more than 20 years later, Irwin Chusid, an author of a book about
outsider music, learned of the recordings and took steps to remaster and
release the original recordings from the Langley district schools to a wider
audience than anyone could have imagined.
***
In the 19 tracks of The Langley Schools Music Project, a variety of
60s and 70s rock and pop songs are represented, from the Beach Boys' "Good
Vibrations" to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." But the standout tracks are
a spooky version of David Bowie's "Space Odyssey," which sounds much like
the children's chorus from Pink Floyd's "The Wall," and "Desparado," the
Eagles classic sung by a 9-year-old soloist with a voice and emotive style
far older than she was at the time.
The instrumentation is sparse and unsophisticated; mostly acoustic guitar,
drums struck off beat and clear hits of a xylophone. The children's voices
veer off-key and back on again, and go from very quiet to very loud very
quickly. But it's the flaws that give the music character and make it real.
The Langley Schools Music Project is a unique artifact of a time
past. The songs, divided into two categories, innocence and despair, evoke
both a childlike energy and haunting spirit from a time and place long gone
from the world of today.
Issue 9, April 2002 | next article
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