Interview: Lydia Adams Davis, Environmental Songwriter

1. Tell us about your journey to becoming an environmental songwriter, singer, and puppeteer.

My singing for audiences began “Down East,” where, as a very young child, my job was to entertain my relatives and family friends at large social gatherings. I sang well, and had a flare for humor. Puppets came along later when my younger cousins gathered around to meet Beaver and Rocco the Raccoon! My family included my Uncle Burton Whitman, who got us up very early to tag baby birds on the small islands off Mere Point, Brunswick, Maine, to keep track of migration patterns.

My cousin and I went digging for clams and larger “Quahogs” with our feet! Harry Tyler learned to carve ducks and all sorts of beautiful birds. I looked up to Woody Hartman, who was my naturalist “hero” and my Aunt Bibbo Whitman’s godson. He conducted research for his PHD by swimming with the Manatees with Jacques Cousteau. The films brought back from Florida made a deep impression on me.

When we moved down to Cornwall, New York, I was passionate about animals in the nature museums and scouting. I learned through first-hand camping experience hiking, swimming, boating, and caring for animals. I took up piano and guitar and applied myself to Theater Arts and performance discipline at The Berkshire Theater Festival and Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts. I was introduced to Pete Seeger at a folk concert in Lenox, MA, where his encouragement led to professional performances and volunteering at The Hudson Sloop Clearwater.

At Elmira College (English and Theater), I got my first job in singing in a folk Coffee house, and later, at graduate school at Hunter College (Special Education: Deaf/hard Hearing certification), I expanded my repertoire to include ASL in creating stories and songs. I quite naturally became a Hudson River Sloop Singer with Pete Seeger and continue to learn the effects of pollution and a great deal about estuary science while singing and sailing. We all became wonderful folksinging entertainers fluent in the mores of Peace, Environmental, and Civil Rights Activism.

As a young mother and teaching artist, I earned a good living on my own in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When my daughter Romeyn graduated from Brooklyn Friends School, I entered the performance field full-time, combining Arts in Education concerts and workshops with touring. I was popular and overjoyed with this work. 

I came to rely on creating an interactive “Eco-Puppet’ educational experience for children with my "Eco Trio" Band as a musical treat in school, library, and nature center assemblies. I produced four albums of original music: "Gift of Story," "Take Me Back," ”We All Have Lunch with Lydia Adams Davis,” and “One Earth So Green and Round,” which was shortlisted for a Grammy nomination. 

To this day I am known for showcasing my improvisational wisdom in song. I am grateful to be talented at entertaining folks who enjoy singing along. I feel part of one great family deeply connected to all living things. We love the Earth ~ our animals, oceans and rivers, mountains, fields and plains, deserts, the amazing sky above, and the air around us. I humbly propose that we are all artists and Ecology Activists.

2.  How did you meet Pete Seeger? How did he influence you and your career?

Pete was totally authentic. He was my role model and my great inspiration to make music my life’s work music. Many performances with Pete Seeger helped train me to reach the audience, engaging them at all times with no self-consciousness. I learned from Pete to sing with joy and intent!

3. Currently, I have three art shows celebrating Pete Seeger’s environmental legacy, which will run until the end of Climate Week NYC, which is being celebrated for the first time in New York State-wide. I have my Healing Hudson art show at Putnam History Museum in Coldspring, NY, from Jun 8 - to Sep 30. I have my Healing Water art show at Havre de Grace Maritime Museum & Environmental Center. At Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, NY, Aug 10 - Sep 29, I have the Pink & Blue Art show where you performed environmental songs of Pete Seeger at the opening. Tell us about your involvement with Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Foundation.

I continue to sail and sing on The Woody Guthrie, perform at Festivals, and support The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

4. Your environmental songs are very educational. I would like to ask you the inspiration for some of these songs. I currently have an art exhibition titled Moody Blue Crabs at Havre de Grace Maritime Museum. Tell us about the inspiration for your "Oh Mr. Crab" song.

"MrCrab" was composed by co-producer Kathy Byers. She and her Dad went sailing and crab fishing a lot together. I loved her observations and enjoyed providing harmony! I sang my environmental song "Lake Erie "frequently over the decade of concerts with Pete Seeger and the Hudson River Sloop Singers; Everyone joined in the chorus.

5. My name, “Selva,” in Latin, means jungle. Tell us about the inspiration for your "Save the Rain Forest” song

I have been invited to schools to conduct Songwriting Workshops with Students.  In a songwriting workshop at The Ostrander School, the fifth-grade students were studying Jungle Ecology. We wrote “Save The Rainforest" together, in one sitting in one day!! Wow!!

6. Pink & Blue Art Show artists photographer Ian Hutton and I took part in UNESCO’s Tides of Change Waves of Hope art show earlier this year. Tell us about the inspiration for your “Think About the Ocean” song.

What a Songwriting assembly took place at a Yonkers Public School. Here, PreK-2nd graders had done some serious research prior to my arrival. I asked them to think about the ocean ~ What had they learned, and what did they feel about these things. We brainstormed, and I suggested an original tune with them catching rhymes and verses from each other. A “Scribe” wrote most of these on a whiteboard, and away we went. A Folksinger friend from Maine came down and pitched in some guitar and shaped some of the research into lyrics.

7. At the Pink and Blue art show, photographer Jim Richards and oil artist Fatma Kadir have beautiful tree artwork.  Tell us about the inspiration for your "Song of Life" song.

My French nieces and nephew were running about and dancing as they celebrated visiting their grandmother in Cornwall (Hamlet of Mountainville). Their dancing produced the melody. Soon after, my husband and I were camping in the Catskills at a lake. That musical poem spouted all the lyrics!! I continued to hone verses on Storm King Mountain and Black Rock Forest.

Listen to "Song of Life" here.

8. Pink & Blue Artists Ilhan Sayin made oil paintings based on Pete Seeger’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” because scientific studies show that climate change negatively impacts the biodiversity of plants and pollinators.  What inspired you to write the "Be a Bumble Bee” song?

My musical guitarist partner gave me a brand-new Folktales puppet for my birthday ~ A Bumblebee. So a flat out song on the spot came to me as I sang with children at a festival. Someone had a tape-recorder and captured the inspiration.

Listen to "Be a Bumble Bee" here.

9. You are also a puppeteer. Tell us about how you got interested in it. I grew up with Sesame Street and lived across the street from Jim Henson for 15 years. What are your thoughts about environmental children's programs in education and TV to raise awareness for the new and future generations?

I would love to see more educational TV/Videos with the educational ENTERTAINMENT value of Sesame Street and Mr Rogers. My daughter and I settled in Brooklyn when those shows began, so we were raised on them as well. Values awareness is a tough commodity in the commercial market. Let’s do more of this!

When Iguana, Tree Frog, and various other Authentic Animal puppets do their interactive thing packed with Science - in Song, kids learn and laugh, listen and sing out their own ideas, and create movement in the space quite smoothly.

Kids love to be puppeteers and act out the Snake Song, “I am Snake,” and Beaver’s “My House Is A Construction Zone,” and “Time’s Running Out For Garbage” gets everyone up and dancing, and they are more than willing to share the stage with each other non-aggressively.

10. Is there anything else you would like to add? We hope you will join us once again for the Climate Week NYC event at HCC. 

I truly write entire songs on the spot in front of audiences. For this I am grateful.

Thank you! Perhaps I can return to sing at HCC again, or any other events.

I shared with you the Environmental legal Victory story stopping "CON EDISON” from blasting a pumped Storage plant in Storm King/Whitehorse Mountain in Cornwall, NY 1970-1981 - I was an integral part of that effort, have stories to tell, as was Pete Seeger and a nascent Scenic Hudson. 

I offer Historical programs: Abigail Adams And Susan B Anthony in costume. 

"The Road Will Lead You Home," ”Homes Along The River,” an urban ballad about the city of Newburgh, “Don’t Listen to the Words” is in the works… a song of how we rise above negativity with acceptance enjoying wisdom/the aging process we experience in ourselves.

People love ”Lake Erie.” 

I sing well for all ages and interests in life. I love to entertain and to share my music. I enjoy listening to stories and writing songs for folks! 

11. How can people reach you?

Google my name

Ask, Siri, play

“Lake Erie,” “Song of Life,” "Shake’N Bake," “Think About the Ocean,” “Did I Miss The Demonstration?” etc, etc by Lydia Adams Davis!!!

Lydia Adams Davis
914 805 2537
Three Feathers Music
PO BOX 1044
Beacon, NY 12508
LydiaAdamsDavis.com

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