Sing my Whole Life Long: Jenny Vincent's Life in Folk Music and Activism (review)

"This lady is a big breath of hope in a cynical age" writes Southwest author John Nichols in his preface to Craig Smith's biography of the life of Jenny Vincent. Smith's book traces Vincent's path of activism and music from her childhood of wealth and privilege in Winnetka, Illinois, to her home today near the rugged mountains of San Cristobal, New Mexico, where, as the leader of the Jenny Vincent Trio, she continues to brighten weddings and local fiestas with folk songs sung in her warm contralto, at the age of 94.

Born in 1913, Deborah Jeannette Hill started playing the piano by ear. Her introduction as a young teen to international folk music and political activism at the progressive North Shore Country Day School laid the roots for her life-long style of playing and singing folk songs in both English and their original languages.

After graduating from Vassar College with a degree in piano and composition, Jenny came to New Mexico in 1936 with her first husband, Dan Wells. The two purchased a run-down ranch near San Cristobal, a tiny village of Spanish-speaking families. With no electricity, no phone, no indoor plumbing, nor paved road, San Cristobal was a long, rough distance from Winnetka. It was a distance that Jenny thrived on. "I landed in a valley of people who were the salt of the earth," she says. "To me it all came together in San Cristobal" (26). To integrate themselves into the community, Jenny and Wells rebuilt roads and bartered with their neighbors. In 1939, they opened the San Cristobal Valley School. Offering grades 5 through 12, it was also the town's first high school.

In 1941, 2 months before Pearl Harbor, Jenny gave birth to a son, Lawrence. With the advent of World War II, Wells joined the service and Jenny went to New York where she joined the American Theater Wing War Service. Here she united with progressive folk singers like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Malvina Reynolds. Extending her work into the classical realm, she also accompanied Paul Robeson for a performance in Boulder, Colorado.

After the war, Jenny and Wells divorced and she married Craig Vincent, the Director of the Rocky Mountain Council for Social Action. Her involvement in folk music as an expression of and motivation for social action accelerated. She and Craig reopened the San Cristobal ranch as a guest ranch and camp with daily singing and dancing. Their home soon became a local center for social activism.

During the 1940s, the Spanish language was banned in public schools. To acquaint children with the Spanish folk songs of their heritage, Jenny joined with a few local school teachers and set up musical performances in their classrooms. Since that time, Jenny has presented workshops for teachers in bilingual programs from Head Start through college. The workshops led her into a recording venture and an album of "Spanish American Children's Songs" in 1956. They also paved the way for Jenny to create the Taos Recording and Publishing Company, which produced Taos folk and dance music.

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Jenny supported progressive causes and actions with her music. She was present at the start of the Native American rights and the Chicano movements, and over the past fifty some years has continued to support social justice initiatives with song and action. Recently, Jenny's contributions to international, Spanish, and New Mexican folk music, her vitality, and her unwavering and active commitment to New Mexican culture and her community have begun to receive recognition. In 2005, she played at the University of New Mexico's Zimmerman Library and received an award for her cultural activism and her work in music and dance. In April 2007, she was interviewed on national radio and television by Amy Goodwin of Democracy Now. Several months ago, it was announced that...