OLD-GASHIONED SONGS FOR A NEW-FANGLED WORLD

Performing for groups of children, Ozark folk singer Judy Domeny asks them to think about which is better, the harder work required of life in the past or the stress that comes with modern living.

It's a question she has tried to answer in her own life.

"Sometimes I feel like I have a leg in both worlds," Domeny says, smiling readily. "I think I have the best of both worlds."

She teaches art in an elementary school, and her husband, David Bowen, is in TV production. But at night they go home to the same 80-acre farm she grew up on near Springfield. The farm has horses, cattle and "lots of rocks," she says. "... It's a hobby farm more than anything. But it's what got into my blood."

Wearing a school marm dress and singing Ozark folk songs about tragic events and farming and quilting parties, Domeny sounds as comfortable in another era as she is in this one.

She will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the amphitheater behind the visitors center at Trail of Tears State Park, and at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Bollinger Mill State Historical Site in Burfordville. Both concerts are free. Attendees at Bollinger Mill should bring lawn chairs.

Her first public performance was a verse of "Down in the Valley" by herself in a sixth-grade music program. By high school she was singing in the Silver Dollar City Music Festival and in a 4-H singing group that traveled to Romania.

Now she performs primarily for events and festivals in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

She grew up listening to her father sing traditionals like "Redwing" and "The Letter Edged in Black," and such songs remain the backbone of her repertoire. She went to a two-week auctioneer school in Kansas City because she wanted to learn the "Auctioneer Song." It has led to yet another part-time career as a professional auctioneer.

Speaking so swiftly is not difficult, she says. "The only people who couldn't do it at the school didn't have any rhythm."

She has gathered many of the folk songs she sings from the collections of people like Max Hunter and Vance Rudolph, who did field recordings in the Ozarks. One group of songs she has specialized in tell the stories of Missouri tragedies. "The West Plains Explosion" is about an unsolved dance-hall blast that killed many people. "The Iron Mountain Baby" is about an infant thrown off a train. "The Meeks Family Murder" tells the tale of a Sedalia-area family killed to cover up a livestock theft.

She learned these songs because they told stories and made people stop and think. And she's convinced today's killers have nothing on those of yore.

Domeny has built her reputation singing traditional Ozark folk songs and obscure Missouri traditionals. But the songs on her newest CD are originals for the first time, and these songs are meant to be funny, not tragic.

The CD "Teacher Therapy: So You Want to Be a Teacher?" began with a single humorous song, "The February Teacher Blues," written after three straight weeks when her classes couldn't go outside for recess. Other titles include "Happy Snow Day," "Faculty Meetings" and "Excuses."

The exception to the funny songs is "Brandon Moved Away," a tune about a foster child who always caused trouble in her class but whose sudden move out of town leaves her praying for his safety.

"We didn't know where he went," Domeny says. "Even though he was a lot of trouble, he was safe in our school."

Every school has Brandons, she says.

"Every teacher need to be on the lookout for Brandon and do a little extra for him."

The CD is available at 3Rs Plus Supplies in Cape Girardeau and through Amazon.com.

She loves children, but senior citizens are her favorite audiences. "It's more than a song to them," she says. "It's a memory."