“Good morning, good morning! / Nature hums when morning comes along / Day’s dawning, stop yawning / and begin to join me in my song.”
Those sunny lyrics, sung by Shirley Temple in “Early Bird,” kicked off every episode of Robert Resnik’s long-running show at the University of Vermont radio station, WRUV. Robert launched the program, fittingly titled “The Shirley Temple Show,” in 1970, his first year on campus. Contrary to its name, the show was not a celebration of America’s Sweetheart but an unpredictable blend of whatever music struck a chord with Robert that week. It was an immediate hit.
“His show on WRUV was legendary,” Robert’s friend Bill Harvey recalled. “Everyone I knew would stop what they were doing at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday because Robert was coming on air to play records.”
With a voracious musical appetite and an encyclopedic knowledge of music surpassed only by his desire to share it, Robert would remain one of the leading lights of the Vermont music scene for the next 50 years. He was an accomplished musician, a revered radio DJ — most notably with Vermont Public — and a fair critic for this paper, covering local folk releases for 16 years, up until 2019. He was also a librarian at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, where he hosted popular kids’ music programs.
After living with Parkinson’s disease for several years, Robert died on July 21 at age 72, leaving a legacy of musical exploration and preservation in Vermont. And it all started with “The Shirley Temple Show.”
That wildly eclectic program featured everything from folk acts like Pentangle to the punk rock Robert grew up listening to, such as the Ramones, Iggy and the Stooges, and MC5, the last of whom he once booked to play at his high school. The radio show was inspired by his childhood devotion to stations such as WFMU, an independent free-form channel in New Jersey, where he grew up. Robert saw radio as the perfect medium to indulge one of his life’s biggest passions: exposing people to new music.
“Nothing excited him so much as putting together a clever mix for the radio,” longtime friend and musical collaborator Gigi Weisman said. “It could be a key change or a common lyrical theme that would bind the songs together, but his eyes lit up whenever he figured something out. For him, he was preparing a gift for friends.”
Vermont in the 1970s was the perfect place to hone his talents. Robert had grown up visiting his maternal grandparents in Burlington, so UVM was a natural destination after high school. A few years later, he convinced his younger brother, Martin, to make the same move.
Martin, childhood friend Roy Feldman and their partners moved up to Vergennes while Robert was working at the Time Guitars factory there. They lived in the attic of the shop for a while before they all headed to Burlington. Like his brother, Martin immersed himself in the local folk scene. He often played with Feldman, who also opened several Burlington-area bagel shops over the years.
Robert, Martin, brother Michael and sister Judy were raised in a musical home. Martin, 68, recalls the Resnik clan often breaking out into song together, especially on the weekends at their grandparents’ home, where Yiddish songs were common. He remembers when Robert convinced his dad to buy him an electric guitar, a Danelectro purchased from the Sears catalog.
“For the first year he had the thing, all we ever heard in the house was ‘Wild Thing,’ over and over,” Martin said. The 1966 hit by the Troggs was a favorite of Robert’s. He and his friends would jam endlessly on the tune, making up their own, often slightly profane lyrics.
It would not be the last instrument Robert learned. No one seems to know the exact number, but he could play well over 60 different instruments, from slide whistles to banjos to his beloved accordion. Many of those ended up in his massive collection of musical gear, which occupied its own room in his Burlington home. Later in life, he introduced a program at the library called “60 Instruments in 60 Minutes,” where he played a different instrument every minute for an hour.
Robert met his future wife, Maureen, while the two were students at UVM. She had just baked some banana bread at her apartment on Union Street when she heard music outside. Robert was walking around downtown, playing music as he wandered, a not-uncommon occurrence in those days.
“I thought, What a nice little treat,” Maureen said. “To have someone just strolling around the streets, playing music for anyone, it was lovely. So I tossed down some banana bread to him from the window.”
She bumped into Robert again at a contra dance on campus a little while later; they bonded over her desire to learn to play the recorder. They eventually married in 1988, after Robert had ended his show at WRUV.
“You never knew what band you were in until Robert picked you up for the gig.”
Martin Resnik
By that time, he was playing with more local bands than anyone could keep track of. His best-known outfit was the Celtic folk crew the Highland Weavers, but there was also Twist of the Wrist, Swing & Tears, and Colcannon. That’s not to mention the many one-night-only bands he formed to play weddings, restaurant gigs, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, marathons and any other place he could find to show up with instruments.
“You never knew what band you were in until Robert picked you up for the gig,” Martin said. “One night he told me that we were going to be performing as the Fabulous Mariachi Resnik Brothers.” When Martin responded that he didn’t know any Mexican songs, Robert just grinned and replied, “Sure you do.”
Weisman was Robert’s near-constant musical companion. They met at the Hebrew school that his sons, Max and Ben, attended; she was the principal. Weisman was a classically trained musician who had never played any sort of folk music. But she found herself putting together a Hanukkah show at the Green Mountain Shalom Preschool with Robert, learning the ins and outs of playing music for kids.
“The first song I ever played without sheet music was ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ and I have Robert to thank for that,” Weisman said.
His love for performing music for children fed directly into his career. At the Fletcher Free Library, Robert worked first as a reference librarian and eventually became the codirector. There, he was able to combine his passions for music, knowledge, history and teaching kids. He stayed at the library for 28 years, until his retirement in 2018.
“When I first started working at the library in 2007, Robert and Gigi’s weekly sing-alongs were the premier event for toddlers, preschoolers and their caregivers,” said Megan Estey Butterfield, the youth services librarian. “The program was so popular that we regularly turned folks away due to fire code limits in the room.”
Butterfield ended up performing with Robert as well, playing children’s music with him and fellow musician Emer Pond Feeney at libraries across the state. She noted that Robert and Weisman recorded multiple albums of kids’ music, selling them as fundraisers for the Fletcher.
“Robert was a loud librarian,” she shared. “At any given time during the workday, he might corner you with a song, old or new, that reminded him of you. Or he might write you a personalized tune on the spot.”
He was also a passionate amateur mycologist. When he wasn’t putting together radio shows, playing gigs or working at the library, Robert could be found foraging at his favorite — and often secret — spots for mushrooms. The hobby went along with a general love of food; he was frequently as excited to try a new restaurant as he was to play a piece of unknown music for listeners.
In 1996, Robert took his headphones to Vermont Public Radio, where he launched the folk music show “All the Traditions.” Every Sunday night for almost 30 years, right up until his death, he prepared a selection of tunes from Vermont and all over the world. The show was beloved in folk circles, helping to earn him multiple honors such as the 2019 Herb Lockwood Prize in the Arts, the 2022 Margaret L. Kannenstine Award for Arts Advocacy and an induction into Folk Alliance International’s Folk DJ Hall of Fame in 2023.
“Dad’s love of folk music was tied directly to his love of family traditions,” said Robert’s eldest son, Max, 36. He and his brother, Ben, 33, grew up following Maureen and their dad around the state to folk festivals and shows. “Supporting local folk music meant the world to him,” Max said. “He loved that feeling of being a curator and getting to geek out over music with his friends.”
Many of those friends are gathering to honor their departed friend this Sunday, October 26, at the Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington. “Robertpalooza: A Loving Musical Tribute to Robert Resnik” features a cavalcade of Vermont folk artists ready to sing some of Robert’s favorite tunes. The massive lineup includes Paul Asbell, Mary McGinnis, Patti Casey, Nancy Beaven, Jeff Salisbury and “Banjo Dan” Lindner. All proceeds will go to Vermont Public and the Fletcher Free Library.
Harvey, who first met Robert at the old Upstairs Records store on Church Street more than 45 years ago, never questioned whether there would be a concert for Robert; it was a no-brainer.
“There are people in this world that are so excited to be alive, and they exude positive curiosity,” Harvey said. “It could be music, it could be films, it was often food, but … that’s what Robert was. He was brimming with this kind of light.” The Higher Ground show, he said, “is about honoring that light and showing that it will continue.”
Martin, who will also perform at the concert, hopes someone tackles Shirley Temple as a callback to his brother’s WRUV show. It would then be fitting if the concert closed with the same song Robert often played to end his show, “After Hours” by the Velvet Underground. It goes like this:
“If you close the door, the night could last forever / Leave the wineglass out and drink a toast to never.”
“Robertpalooza: A Loving Musical Tribute to Robert Resnik,” Sunday, October 26, 4 p.m., at Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington. $25. highergroundmusic.com
The original print version of this article was headlined “‘Robert Was a Loud Librarian’ | Robert Jay Resnik, April 5, 1953-July 21, 2025″
This article appears in The Tech Issue 2025.
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