This collection of songs is the result of the author's long association as music director of Cape Breton's coal miners' choir, the Men of the Deeps.  It is an attempt to introduce the reader to the joys and hardships of the Canadian coal miner as expressed in song.  The reader may also expect to gain insight into an important aspect of Canadian history:  the integral role that the labour force has contributed to Canada's cultural mosaic.

Endorsements:
The songs are moving testaments in their humanity, particularly with [our] current knowledge that miners have long been engaged in a cosmic battle with Mother Earth.  Every page holds a surprise, from adventures in Red China to yesterday' tragedy at the Westray mine."
Archie Green, retired professor of folklore, University of Texas at Austin

". . .a collection of much scope and richness."
Philip J. Thomas, collector and folklorist, author of Songs of the Pacific Northwest

". . .a great collection of coal mining songs and a magnificent tribute to the men who go 'down in a coal mine underneath the ground, where a gleam of sunshine never can be found.' "
Joe Glazer, chairman, Labor Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C.

"John O'Donnell has filled a big gap in our Canadian folk music.  We have many books that present songs of our sailors and lumbermen, but this is the first devoted to the songs of our miners.  He has done for Canada what George Korson did for the United States."
Edith Fowke, professor emeritus, York University, and editor, Canadian Folk Music Journal
 
Reviews:
"O'Donnell . . .is excited by his subject and wants us to be excited about how an industry has created a breed of people and an entire way of life.  He loves the songs and is proud of their variety.  He gives us wonderful historical information.  I learned so much: about the bootleg coal trade by which miners supplemented their meagre incomes; about the many Springhill disasters; about the variants and antecedents of 'The Blackleg Miner'.  Had I not, as a reviewer, received the book gratis, I would have bought it."
Peggy Seeger:  English Folk Music Journal, Vol. 6, No. 5 (1994)

"O'Donnell has done a fine job.  This is the most important book of Canadian folk songs to appear in quite a few years"
Edith Fowke, Canadian folk Music Journal, Toronto, Vol. 20 (1993)

"It's a remarkable collection of songs; and the historical notes give the material a richness of significance which is most appealing."
William Brubacher, President, Waterloo Music Company, Waterloo, Ontario

"In recent times, coal usage is waning, mines are closing down and becoming 'overgrown with fields of green' -- but these songs will live on.
Come-All-Ye, A Review Journal for publications in the fields of Folklore, American Studies, social History and Popular Culture, Hatboro, Pa., Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring 1993)

And Now The Fields Are Green. . .may be ordered from the University College of Cape Breton Press, P. O. Box 5300, Sydney, Nova Scotia, B1P 6L2

Click here to see Table of Contents for And Now The Fields Are Green
 
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