Stan Rogers
The strange way I discovered his beautiful voice
I love folk music. I have loved folk music from the first time I heard it as a teenager. Later, in college, I sang folk music with Paddy from Ireland and Julian from South Africa. (He had left his home country out of protest to Apartheid.) There is no sound more beautiful than many voices blending together in harmony.
This grainy news article showing me singing at a folk festival is all that is left of this time long ago.
Folk music first brought me to the U.S. when I tried to follow the wide-open roads described by the Beat Poets while listening to Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. Even now I miss no chance to listen to a beautiful voice or a harmony of voices, a classical choir, a beautiful pop song, or a local group of older women calling themselves “Shades of Gray.”
I had never heard of Stan Rogers, however, until today. I had just watched a YouTube video when another one caught my eye, one of those disaster videos of an airplane crashing. This one did not crash, but a fire broke out and 23 people died. One of them was Stan Rogers. The video included one of his friends talking about Rogers’ talent, his generosity, and his wonderful voice.
The next video I watched was, of course, The very best of Stan Rogers. After the…
