The Adirondack Life article makes frequent use of the fact that one of the most important forms of music in the Adirondacks is the ballad. Essentially, the ballad is one of the most narrative types of music. Generally it involves a rather simplistic plot line as some sort of character discovers something, in a very emotional form instead of a summary. It's normally a very evocative and sentimental song, which fits in well with the tradition of spoken narrative in the Adirondacks.
The song "Barbara Allen" that was mentioned got me interested. It's a rather slow song, chronicling a dying man as he pines over a fair lady named Barbara Allen. Upon hearing that the man was so into her, Barbara is so overwhelmed with grief that she resolves to die for him the next day. (The mother dies the next day out of love for both of them) A little melodramatic, yes, but very indicative of a romantic sentiment that continues in folk tradition to this day. A lot of these songs were passed alongside immigrants (the song in question originated in England, the lyrics website suggests the song has a large Southern presence as well) in logging camps, specifically when the men lived in the logging camps together. In this light, the proliferation of a story about a dying man who has a woman waiting for him in death gives a very tragic and longing perspective on their day to day lives in the camp.
http://freepages.music.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~edgmon/stbarbarallen.htm
(Lyrics are here)
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