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While Newfoundlanders have preserved old world songs, they’ve also chronicled their own experiences in song. Songwriters and balladeers like Peter Leonard (1890–1964) of Placentia Bay; Johnny Burke (1851–1930), known as “the Bard of Prescott Street”; James Murphy (1868–1931); and Johnny Quigley, “the Bard of Erin,” all made early contributions to a canon of Newfoundland song.
This playlist includes contributions from all of these songwriters. It also includes a song composed by two brothers from the Cape Shore—Henry Nash, Sr, and Bernard Nash—as well as a number of children’s songs that seem to have been documented almost exclusively in Newfoundland.
