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Margaret MacArthur has been collecting and singing the traditional songs of New England's working-class and farm communities for nearly half a century. In 1985, officials of the New England arts biennial committee named MacArthur one of seven "living art treasures of New England." MacArthur's earliest exposure to the oral tradition came through the nursery rhymes that her mother sang to her and the cowboy songs that her stepfather, a forest ranger, sang as she was growing up in Arizona and the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. After marrying and moving to Vermont in 1948, MacArthur lived a simple, rural life in a cabin home that had no electricity or running water. MacArthur's involvement with folk music began when she volunteered to teach music at the school that her children -- Don, Gary and Megan -- attended. By 1951, MacArthur was a regular performer on local radio stations. Her debut album, Folk Songs of Vermont, was released in 1961. MacArthur subsequently focused on the tradition...