20 “White House Blues” by Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers

Charlie Poole’s World

From all the pionneer “hilbilly” musicians and singers  whose recordings in the twenties and thirties established the roots of American country and folk music, Charlie Poole is the most well remembered and his legacy on further developements of the music is important. With his band, The North carolina Ramblers, they took the best of the country and the city popular music of their time and blend it together in an unique style that influenced many others back then and ever since. in their recordings, you can hear echoes of rural string band music, Tin Pan Alley popular songs, “coon songs” of the ministrel shows, Irish accents, melted in a tight combination of fiddle-guitar-banjo with Poole’s strong vocals over it. That plus his dexterity on the banjo, played in a pre-Earl Scruggs three-finger style, made their music very unique. Certainly, Poole’s reputation as a hard-living, hard-drinking man and his prematury death at age 39 helped also to forge his “legend”.

-The best way to enter “Charlie Poole’s world” is by buying the excellent box-set “You ain’t talkin to me-Charlie Poole and the roots of country music” issued by Columbia-Legacy a few years ago. In addition to Charlie Poole’s best recordings, are featured many other recordings who influenced his music and other versions of Poole’s records by other string bands. The liner notes by Henry Sapoznik are excellent and the packaging is very cool. (Robert Crumb did the artwork). You can have a glimpse of it here. 

-On this page, read Charlie Poole’s biography

-And here, you’ll have the lyrics for many Poole’s songs.

-I compiled 25 tracks that i love selected from the JSP box-set reissue of Poole’s complete recordings that i own. But i plan to buy also  the box-set descibed above because from what i heard, the sound is much better than on the JSP reissue and it offers also many rare records not available anywhere.

-TRACK LIST

1.The Girl I Left In Sunny Tennessee

2.I’m The Man That Rode The Mule Around The World

3.Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister

4.Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Blues

5.Goodbye Booze

6.Budded Rose

7.There’ll Come A Time

8.White House Blues

9.The Highwayman

10.Hungry Hash House

11.If I Lose, I Don’t Care

12.You Ain’t Talkin’ To Me

13.Falling By The Wayside

14.Take A Drink On Me

15.George Collins

16.Ramblin’ Blues

17.Shootin’ Creek

18.Bill Mason

19.Baltimore Fire

20.Sweet Sunny South

21.He Rambled

22.Tennessee Blues

23.If The River Was Whiskey

24.Goodbye Sweet Liza Jane

25.Milwaukee Blues

DOWNLOAD HERE

The White House Blues Variations

After “Charles Giteau” here’s another folk ballad that deals with the assassination of a president, this time, William McKinley, 25th president of the United States, killed by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, in 1901. For the details of this event, go here. It seems that the ballad originated with afro-americans “songsters” and, like “Stackalee”, was a kind of proto-Blues with a melody and a verse structure very alike another murder Blues ballad, “Delia’s gone”. In fact, all this songs, Delia, White House Blues, The Cannon Ball, Railroad Bill, even Stackalee and Frankie had very similar melodies in their primary forms, as they entered the oral tradition at the same time, the turn of the century and were all associated with black singers. Later, white musicians began to take those songs in their repertoire, like White House Blues, who became, thanks to Bill Monroe, a bluegrass standard.

-You can go here, to read more about the sources of this song.

-in his book “Long Steel Rail”, Norm Cohen tells about the writer D.H Lawrence, who used to sing a version of “White House Blues”. A friend of Lawrence recalled that in 1915, as he was singing several Negro Spirituals, he also “…set our brains jingling with an american ballad on the murder of president McKinley with words of brutal jocularity sung to an air of of lilting sweetness…”

-A few words on my selected tracks: “Zolgotz” is the title that Bascom Lamar Lunsford gave to his version of “White House Blues”, refering to the name of the murderer. He recorded this track for the Library of Congress in 1949. The New Lost City Ramblers’s version is in fact a parody that was written during the Depression and mock President Hoover. Ernest Stoneman’s version is titled “Road to Whashington” and sounds a lot like the Charlie Poole’s version. He recorded the song twice, the first version being called “Unlucky road to Whashington”. The Greenbriar Boys’s version was learned from a Riley Puckett record. Peter Stampfel of The Holy Modal Rounders does a unique performance in his unique weird string-band style. On the wonderful website “Digital Library of Appalachia” i was happy to find two afro-american versions of the song, bringing it to his roots. One is by banjo player Big Sweet Lewis Hairston with Leonard Bowles on fiddle ( this is really black string-band music at his best), the other one by Howard Twine on the electric guitar. British guitarist John Renbourn made a really nice version of the song, turning it into an introspective ballad with nice minor chords on the guitar. I’ve included also two versions of “Cannon Ball Blues” by The Carter Family, as the melody and the verses are strongly related. The first one was sung by A.P Carter and the other was sung by Maybelle during a “Friends of old-time music” concert in the sixties.

-TRACK LIST:

1.Zolgotz ,Bascom Lamar Lunford, from “Songs and Ballads of American History and of the Assassination of Presidents”

2.White House Blues, Big Sweet Lewis Hairston & Leonard Bowles, from Digital Library of Appalachia

3.The Road To Washington, Ernest V. Stoneman, from “The Unsung Father Of Country Music”

4.The Cannon Ball,The Carter Family , from a Jsp box set

5.White House Blues, Tom, Brad & Alice, from “Carve That Possum”

6.White House Blues, Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys, from “Live Recordings 1956-1969: Off the Record Volume 1″

7.McKinley , The Greenbriar Boys, from “Best of the Vanguard Years” 

8.White House Blues, John Renbourn, from “Faro Annie”

9.White House Blues, New Lost City Ramblers, from “Songs From The Depression”

10.White House Blues, Janice Trail, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

11.New White House Blues,Peter Stampfel, from “The Jig Is Up”

12.White House Blues, Howard Twine, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

13.He’s Solid Gone, Maybelle Carter, from “Friends Of Old Time Music “

14.White House Blues, Haywood Blevins, from Digital Library of Appalachia

DOWNLOAD HERE

19 “Stackalee” by Frank Hutchison

Frank Hutchison’s World

“Frank Hutchison was born 1897 in Raleigh County, West Virginia; some sources quote 20th March 1897 as his date of birth. Soon after 1897 the Hutchison family moved to Logan County, West Virginia, a location commemorated by Hutchison’s classic guitar solo Logan County Blues. Prior to his musical and recording career Frank Hutchison had worked as a miner and according to a fellow Logan County musician, had a limp – one assumes this may have been due to an accident while working in the mines. He also worked at times as a cook, carpenter and general handyman. Photos show a serious looking man but by all accounts he was very friendly and an outgoing character. According to Ernest Stoneman, Hutchison was ”a big red-headed Irishman”, one who evidently had plenty of fun in him.

With regard to Hutchison’s contributions to the field of early country music (or if you prefer the term otm), it has to be said he was not only an innovative while country blues man but also someone who had a few ‘extra cards up his sleeve’ as compared to some of his contemporaries. Apart from his distinctive voice, albeit a trifle rough one, Frank Hutchison’s guitar playing was innovative, particularly in his use of the slide guitar on some of his recordings.
In September 1926 he travelled to New York to make his first recordings for the Okeh company with whom he would remain for his three-year recording career. The two sides he cut were made using the acoustic method of recording, as distinct from the electrical process that would eventually consign the earlier method to the history books. In fact it appears that when Hutchison re-recorded these two numbers they may have been the first Okeh issues to use the then new electrical recording system.
It seems obvious that the label must have been satisfied with the sales of his initial recordings because Frank Hutchison was called back for a 1927 date that provided nine fine performances. A two-day session in April produced five numbers, including the re-makes of Hutchison’s first two sides. Apart from them, two items are worthy of mention; The Last Scene of The Titanic is, as a song, a unique version about the Titanic disaster; an event that had occured fifteen years earlier but was still very much in the mind of the general public and record buyers. Hutchison’s version difters from all the many other ‘Titanic’ songs recorded by both black and white performers. The other piece of interest is Logan County Blues, a variation on the tune Spanish Fandango; it is played in open tuning and is a Hutchison ‘piece-de-resistance’. His picking makes the listener think it is a simple guitar solo – any would-be guitar player will tell you otherwise!
Having cut so many sides in 1927 it is perhaps not surprising that nearly eighteen months would elapse before he returned to the Okeh studios, once again for a two-day stint. On the first day Hutchison was in the company of fiddler Sherman Lawson; according to Lawson, Okeh had asked Hutchinson to bring along a fiddler player as they thought he was running low on material. The presence of Lawson is unusual as normally Frank Hutchison was a solo performer and reportedly not very good as an accompanist. While the sides cut on the first day, with fiddle player Sherman Lawson are excellent, the results of the second day’s work produced three superb Hutchison vocal /guitar solos plus the instrumental Hutchinson’s Rag. This last-named number being very akin to Riley Puckett’s 1927 recording, Fuzzy Rag. Disc B commences with the conclusion of Frank Hutchison’s final solo recording session for Okeh. (He did record for the label again, in September 1929, as a part of the Okeh Medicine Show, a six-sided set that was a showcase for a selection of Okeh’s otm artists). Once again everything made at the July date can be described as either first-rate or outstanding. Some pundits consider these last recordings to be less original than earlier performances; even if this is true to an extent one cannot dismiss Hutchison’s ‘parting shots’ in the commercial recording world. Debatably, his final session proved he had more to offer. Cannonball Blues and K.C. Blues may well be re-works of earlier recordings but what a stunning exit for the end of a solo career. Hutchison may not have had a particularly attractive voice (some have even described it, perhaps unfairly, as ‘leather-throated’), but there can be no doubt as to its rough charm. Additionally, his grand guitar playing overrides any doubts about his vocal abillities. But, it may well have been simply, as mentioned in the notes to disc A, that Okeh had been correct and Hutchinson had just run out of new material.

After the Okeh Medicine Show recordings, Hutchison and his family moved briefly to Chesapeake, Ohio but soon ended up back in West Virginia. Here they ran a store from 1934 until 1942 when the premises burnt down, forcing the family to move to first Columbia, Ohio and then to Dayton. Frank Hutchison died on 9th November 1945, leaving behind a fine music legacy, a bequest that might have been enhanced with new material to give an extension to his recording career.” (Pat Harrison’s liner notes to “Worried Blues”, a JSP box-set that re-issued all Frank Hutchison and Kelly Harrell’s 78rpm records)

-I have compiled 22 tracks by Frank Hutchison here, so to complete all his recording output, you have 6 other tracks that i already posted in my Dick Justice compilation, the instrumental version of “Stackalee” is on the first part of “The Stackalee Variations” and his song about the Titanic will be featured in a future post. (I didn’t included some re-recordings he made of “Worried Blues” and “The train that carried my girl from town”)

TRACK LIST:

1.Worried Blues

2.The Train That Carried My Girl From Town

3.The Wild Horse

4.Long Way To Tipperary

5.West Virginia Rag

6.C&O Excursion

7.Coney Isle

8.Lightning Express

9.Old Rachel

10.Stackalee

11.All Night Long

12.Alabama Girl, Ain’t You Comin’ Out Tonight

13.Hell Bound Train

14.Wild Hogs in the Red Brush

15.The Burglar Man

16.Back In My Home Town

17.Hutchison’s Rag

18.The Boston Burglar

19.Railroad Bill

20.Johnny and Jane (Part 1)

21.Johnny and Jane (Part 2)

22.Cannon Ball Blues

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

-In bonus i offer you the musical and humorous skit he recorded along with other Okeh artists, notably John Carson and Emmett Miller.

It’s called “The Okeh Medecine Show“, it appeared in 1929 on three 78rpm records.(You can here Frank in part 2,4 and 6 of the skit)

DOWNLOAD HERE (zip file of six mp3s)

-Frank Hutchison was originally a miner in West Virginia and i found this clip on YouTube that reminds us of the violent conflicts and strong social injustices that happened in 1920-1921, known as “The West Virginia Mine Wars”.

The Stackalee Variations

Excerpts from the Wikipedia page about Stackalee:

“William Lyons, 25, a levee hand, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o’clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Shelton, a carriage driver. Lyons and Shelton were friends and were talking together. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Shelton’s hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Shelton withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor Shelton took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. Lee Shelton is also known as ‘Stagger’ Lee. ” (St.Louis, Misouri, Globe-Democrat article from 1895)

Lee Shelton (also known as Stagger Lee, Stagolee, Stackerlee, Stack O’Lee, Stack-a-Lee and by several other spelling variants) was a black cab driver and a pimp convicted of murdering William “Billy” Lyons on Christmas Eve, 1895 in St. Louis, Missouri. The crime was immortalized in a blues folk song that has been recorded in hundreds of different versions. Lee Shelton was not just a common pimp, but as described by Cecil Brown, “Lee Shelton belonged to a group of pimps known in St. Louis as the ‘Macks’. The macks were not just ‘urban strollers’; they presented themselves as objects to be observed.”

Shelton died in prison in 1912, of tuberculosis.

-Stackalee is, along with John Henry, the most important figure in afro-american oral traditions, one of the most persistent too, his legend being present in  almost every new stage of developement of afro-american music in the 20th century. In a way he is the opposite of John Henry, his negative side, surely a “bad” man, with all the clichés of violence, gambling, booze and women surrounding him, but nevertheless became a “hero” for the black community, a symbol of resistance against white supremacy and racism. 

-I found some really great articles on the net about Stagger Lee: The Stagger Lee Files is a great place to start exploring the myth and the legend, Stagger Lee.com has a very complet historical page and also a list of  421 recordings!, from Early Blues.com, there’s a superb essay by Max haymes and here, another brillant essay by Angela Nelson who analyse the figure of Stagger Lee in rap music. 

-Go there to read the long essay by writer Paul Slade “De Lyons Sleeps Tonight:Stagger Lee”

-There are two books also of interest on the subject, Cecil Brown’s “Stagolee shot Billy”  and  Greil Marcus’s essay “Sly Stone and the myth of Stagolee” in his book “Mystery Train”.

-I’ve selected 60 performances, trying to represent all the musical traditions that shared the song and his legend. Once again, like “The John Henry Variations”, i’ve classed the tracks according to musical thematics but once you have download them all, it’s good to mix them, to make your own list of favorites,etc…

Afro-american musical traditions

(Hollers, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Soul, Funk, Rap, etc…)

-Part 1:

1.Stackerlee, Bama, from “Prison Songs Vol.1;Alan Lomax recordings”

2.Stack O’ Lee Blues, Ma Rainey, from “Black Bottom”

3.Stackolee, Mississippi John Hurt, from “Avalon Blues”

4.Stack O’Lee Blues, Cab Calloway, from “Complete Jazz Series 1931 – 1932″

5.Original Stack O’ Lee Blues, Long “Cleve” Reed & Little Harvey Hull, from “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Super Rarities & Unissued Gems Of The 1920s & 30s”

6.Stack O’Lee Blues,  Johnny Dodds, from “Complete Jazz Series 1928 – 1940″

7.Billy Lyons and Stack O’Lee, Furry Lewis, from “First Recordings”

8.Stack O’Lee Blues,  Duke Ellington, from “Complete Jazz Series 1927 – 1928″

9.Stagolee, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, from “Big Joe Williams and the Stars of Mississippi Blues “

10.Old Stack O’Lee Blues, Sidney Bechet, from “Shake It And Break It”

11.Staggerlee , John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, from “Classic African American Ballads”

12.Stagolee, Hogman Maxey, from “Angola Prisoners’ Blues”

13.Stack O’ Dollars Blues, James “Yank” Rachell, from “Legendary Country Blues Artists”

14.Stack O’ Dollars, Big Joe Williams, from “Big Joe Williams and the Stars of Mississippi Blues” 

15.Stackolee, Dom Flemons,from “Dance tunes, Ballads and Blues”

DOWNLOAD HERE

-Part 2:

1.Stackalee, Margaret Walker, from ”Anthology of Negro Poetry”

2.Stagger Lee, Lloyd Price, from “60s Soul Sessions”

3.Stack-O-Lee ,Champion Jack Dupree, from “Blues from the Gutter”

4.Stack-A-Lee, Archibald, from “Archibald’s Crescent City Bounce”

5.Stagger Lee, Ike And Tina Turner, from “Soul Masters: Proud Mary”

6.Stagger Lee, James Brown, from “The Godfather Returns”

7.Staggolee, Pacific Gas & Electric , from “Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof”

8.Stagger Lee, Professor Longhair, from “Big Easy Strut: The Essential Professor Longhair”

9.The Great Stackalee, Snatch and The Poontangs, from “Snatch & The Poontangs”

10.Stackolee, Samuel L. Jackson, from “Black Snake Moan”

11.Stagger Lee, Henry Gray, from “Blues won’t let me take my rest”

12.Stagger Lee, Taj Mahal, from “Hanapepe Dream”

13.Wrong’em Boyo, The Rulers, from “Trojan Ska Box Set” 

14.Stagolee, R.L. Burnside , from “Well…Well…Well”

15.Stack-O-Lee, Bruce Jackson, from “Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me! Narrative Poetry from the Black Oral Tradition”

DOWNLOAD HERE

White Musical Traditions

(String bands, country,folk,skiffle, rock, etc…)

-Part 3:

1.Stackalee (Instrumental version),Frank Hutchison, from “Worried Blues”

2.Stack-O-Lee, Fruit Jar Guzzlers, from “Old Time Music from West Virginia – Vol. 1″

3.That Bad Man Stackolee, David Miller, from “My Rough & Rowdy Ways Vol. 2″

4.Stack-O-Lee King,Queen, Jack, from “It’s Hotter in Hawaii”

5.Stagger Lee, Woody Guthrie, from “Muleskinner Blues: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 2″

6.Stack O’Lee Blues, Ken Colyer’s Skiffle Group, from “Pig Iron, Washboards, Freight Trains & Kazoos: The UK Skiffle Boom 1954-57″

7.Stack-O-Lee ,Tennessee Ernie Ford, from “Sixteen Tons”

8.Stack O’ Lee, Merle Travis, from “In the Jailhouse Now : Prison Songs & Murder Ballads”

9.Badman Stackolee, Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group Pig Iron, from “Washboards, Freight Trains & Kazoos: The UK Skiffle Boom 1954-57″

10.Stagger Lee, The Wayside Trio, from “Wayside Trio”

11.Stack O’lee, Doc & Merle Watson, from “Ballads from Deep Gap”

12.Stack-O-Lee, Bert Garvin, Danielle Fraley & J.P. Fraley, from “Kentucky Old-Time Banjo”

13.Stagolee, Pete Seeger, from “American Favorite Ballads, Vol. 2″

14.Stagolee, Krüger Brothers, from “Behind the Barn”

15.Stagger Lee, Foghorn Stringband, from “Weiser Sunrise”

DOWNLOAD HERE

-Part 4:

1.Stagger Lee, Bobby Pratt & The Rockers,from ”Wildcat Jamboree!”

2.Stackolee, Journeymen, from “New directions in folk music”

3.Stagger Lee, Dale Miller, from “Finger Picking Rags and Other Delights”

4.Stagger Lee ,Tim Hardin, from “This Is Tim Hardin”

5.Stackerlee, Tom Rush, from “Blues, Songs and Ballads”

6.Stagolee, Bert Jansch, from “Young Man Blues: Live In Glasgow 1962-1964″

7.Stack-O-Lee, Dave Van Ronk, from “On Air”

8.Stackerlee, Tom Paley, from “Old Tom Moore”

9.Mrs. Delion’s Lament,David Bromberg, from “Reckless Abandon/Bandit in a Bathing Suit”

10.Stagger Lee, Grateful Dead , from “Shakedown Street”

11.Stagger Lee ,Dr. John, from “All by Hisself (Live At The Lonestar)”

12.Stack O’ Lee ,Frank Morey, from “The Delmark Sessions”

13.Stack Shot Billy, The Black Keys, from “Rubber Factory”

14.Stagger Lee ,Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, from “Murder Ballads”

15.Stack A Lee, Bob Dylan, from “World Gone Wrong”

DOWNLOAD HERE 

 “What does the song say exactly? It says no man gains immortality thru public acclaim. truth is shadowy. in the pre-postindustrial age, victims of violence were allowed (in fact it was their duty) to be judge over their offenders- parents were punished for their children’s crimes (we’ve come a long wy since then) the song says that a man’s hat is his crown. futurologists would insist it’s a matter of taste. they say “let’s sleep on it” but they’re already living in the sanatorium. No Rights Whithout Duty is the name of the game & fame is a trick. playing for time is is only horsing around. Stack’s in the cell, no wall phone. he is not some egotistical degraded existentialist dionysian idiot, neither does he represent any alternative lifestyle scam (give me a thousand acres of tractable land & you’ll see the Authentic alternative lifestyle, the Agrarian one) Billy didn’t have an insurance plan, didn’t get airsick yet his ghost is more real & genuine than all the dead souls on the boob tube- a monumental epic of blunder & misunderstanding. a romance tale whithout the cupidity.” (Bob Dylan’s liner notes to “Stack a lee” on his album “World Gone Wrong”)

“Design up-date”

I changed the design theme of the site to see how it looks and if it makes the reading more easy… Tell me if you prefer this or the older one…Right now, i’m working on the Stackalee Variations and it’s gonna be a fun listening, for sure, so see you soon…

18 “Gonna die with my hammer in my hand” by The Williamson Brothers & Curry

The Williamson Brothers & Curry’s World

Arnold (fiddle) and Irving (guitar) Williamson were from Logan County, West Virginia, like two other Anthology artists Frank Hutchinson and close neighbour Dick Justice. They recorded a few sides in the twenties for Okeh with a banjo player named Curry (I’m pretty sure he didn’t played a five-string on this records but something like a uke-banjo or tenor). Judging by the six sides we know, they were an old-timey dance act and it’s too bad they didn’t record more because they were on of the best ever recorded in this genre. Their version of “John Henry” is, in my opinion, one of the greatest version of the song too. One can feel a strong influence of black music on all this West-Virginian musicians, in a very obvious way with Hutchinson and Justice who sang many Blues songs but also with the wild square-dance music of The Williamson Brothers.

-TRACK LIST:

1.Warfield

2.Cumberland Gap

3.The Fun’s All Over

4.Lonesome Road Blues

5.The Old Arm Chair

6.Gonna Die With My Hammer in My Hand

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

 

 

 

The John Henry Variations

 ”John Henry” is the most famous american folksong of all time , one of the most recorded too by musicians of all kind and it took me a long time to select my favorite versions among the hundreds recorded. After a closer look at my personnal collection of cds and lps in search of “john Henry” tracks, i completed with things found on Emusic and on the folk collections available on the internet (Max Hunter’s collection, Digital Library of Appalachia). I ended up with 100 performances coming from all the important folk and vernacular genres of 20th century America; From work songs to Blues, Old-time string band to Bluegrass, folk to jazz, etc… Black and white traditionnal music are equally represented, as the figure of John Henry and his impact on the american mind knows no boundaries of race. I think the popularity of “John Henry” is not only due to the story it tells but most important how it tells it, which melody carries the tale of this heroic man. This tune is the quintessential american melody, full of pulse and  rhythm, going back and forth between the high and low notes, from a scream to a whisper… Among the many different instruments used for singing “John Henry”, the guitar used with a bottleneck to slide on the strings is the most appropriate (and one of the most widespread among blues guitarist) to render the “blue” notes and the whailing quality of the melody. The root of its pentatonic scale  and syncopated rhythm is obviously an african one and was carried here by the vocal and instrumental  genius of the african-american slaves that built the land. An important part of the “vitality” of american vernacular music is in fact due to known and unknown african-american musicians, who influenced white folk musicians, most strongly in the South, and left their mark on all popular music ever since.

-Lots of things have been written about John Henry and the  song about him, so much that it would be too long for me and above my capacities to write down for you all this informations here. Instead i’ll give a few links that will help you explore the John Henry’s myth.

- First, there’s this great website dedicated entirely to the subject that summarize every aspect of the legend and gives a bibliography, a short discography and some different lyrics versions.

-The Wikipedia page about John Henry

-I also recommand a book about the railroad in american folksongs written by Norm Cohen called “The long,steel rail”. The chapter about “John Henry” is really excellent.

-I classified the 100 tracks under a few categories but i recommand that once you’ve downloaded the entire set to mix them as you want, make your personnal favorite list and most important have a fun and enjoyable listening experience

Part 1: Field Recordings & 78rpm records

1.Anonymous prisoners, from “Alan Lomax’s Prison Songs Vol.2: Don’tcha Hear Poor Mother Calling?”

2.Arthur Bell, from “Afro-American Spirituals,worksongs and ballads”

3.Rich Amerson, from “Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 3″

4.Willie Turner, from “Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 6″

5.Ed Lewis, from “Southern Journey Vol. 5: Bad Man Ballads – Songs of Outlaws and Desperadoes”

6.Guitar Welch, Hogman Maxey, & Robert Pete Williams, from “Angola Prison Worksongs”

7.Blind John Davis, from “Field Recordings Vol. 2: North & South Carolina, Georgia…”

8.Reese Crenshaw, from “Field Recordings Vol. 2: North & South Carolina, Georgia…”

9.Leadbelly, from “Lead Belly’s Last Sessions”

10.”John Henry Blues”, Fiddlin’ John Carson, from “Vol. 1 (1923-1924) – Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order”

11.”Gonna Die With My Hammer in My Hand Curry”,The Williamson Brothers, from the Anthology

12.”John Henry Blues”,  Two Poor Boys, from  “American Primitive – Volume 2 – Pre-war Revenants 1897-1939″

13.Riley Puckett, from “Guitare Country : From Old Time To Jazz Times 1926-1950″

14.The Skillet Lickers, from “Volume 1 (1926-1927)”

15.Henry Thomas, from “Texas Worried Blues”

16.”John Henry Blues”, Earl Johnson, from “Mountain Blues”

17.Deford Bailey, from “Best of Blues Vol.1 : Harmonica Genius Deford Bailey “

18.”Death Of John Henry (Steel Driving Man)”, Uncle Dave Macon, from “Classic Sides New York 1924-1926″

DOWNLOAD HERE

Part 2: THE BLUES

1.Snooks Eaglin, from “Country Boy Down In New Orleans”

2.Etta Baker with Taj mahal, from “Sisters Of The South” 

3.John Jackson, from “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”

4.Pink Anderson, from “Gospel, Blues And Street Songs” 

5.Hobart Smith, from “In Sacred Trust: The 1963 Fleming Brown Tapes”

6.John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, from “Richmond Blues”

7.Lonzie Thomas, from “Lonzie Thomas”

8.Muddy Waters And Memphis Slim, from  “Chicago Blues Masters, Vol. 1″

9.Furry Lewis, from “Shake ‘Em On Down”

10.Jesse Fuller, from “San Francisco Bay Blues”

11.Peg Leg Sam, from “Early In The Morning”

12.Lesley Riddle, from “Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian Folkways”

13.John Lee Hooker, from “Jack O’Diamonds”

14.Fred MacDowell, from “When I Lay My Burden Down”

15.Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, from “Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing”

16.Ed Cabbell, from the Digital Library of Appalachia

17.Big Bill Broonzy with Pete Seeger, from “Big Bill Broonzy sings folk songs”

18.John Renbourn, from “John Renbourn”

19.Mike Seeger, from “Early Southern Guitar Sounds”

20.Kristina Olsen, from ”Kristina Olsen”

DOWNLOAD HERE

Part 3: Country, Bluegrass, Old-time 

1.Johnny Cash, from “Blood,Sweat and Tears”

2.Fred Cockerham and Kyle Creed, from “Clawhammer Banjo, Volume One”

3.The Stanley Brothers, from “Shadows Of The Past”

4.Glen Smith, from “Clawhammer Banjo, Volume Three”

5.Roscoe Holcomb, from “Friends Of Old Time Music” 

6.Glen Stoneman, from “Southern Journey Vol. 2: Ballads and Breakdowns”

7.Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley, from “Original Folkways Recordings Of Doc Watson And Clarence Ashley, 1960-1962″

8.New Lost City Ramblers, from “Volume 5″

9.Dock Boggs, from “His Folkways Years 1963-1968 “

10.Bill Cornett, from “Mountain Music Of Kentucky”

11.Hazel and Alice, from “Pioneering Women of Bluegrass”

12.”New John Henry”, Bill Monroe, from “Bill Monroe sings Country Blues”

13.Buell Kazee, from “Buell Kazee Sings and Plays”

14. J.C. and Vernon Sutphin, from “The Stoneman Family – Sutphin, Foreacre, and Dickens”

15.Tommy Jarrell, from “Legacy of Tommy Jarrell, Volume 3: Come and Go with Me”

16.Don Reno & Red Smiley, from “On Stage”

17. The Lilly Brothers, from “Early Recordings”

18.Merle Travis, from “The Guitar Player”

19.Doc Watson, from “Songs for Little Pickers”

20.Larry Richardson and the Blue Ridge Boys With Buddy Pendleton, from “Larry Richardson and the Blue Ridge Boys With Buddy Pendleton On Fiddle”

21.Art Rosenbaum, from “Five-string banjo”

22.Bruce Molsky & Big Hoedown, from “Bruce Molsky & Big Hoedown”

DOWNLOAD HERE

Part 4: Black banjo players and string bands/ Instrumentals

1.Joe Thompson and Odell Thompson, from ”Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina & Virginia”

2.James Roberts, from “Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina & Virginia”

3.Homer Walker, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

4.Leonard Bowles & Irvin Cook, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

5.Big Sweet Lewis Hairston, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

6.Blind James Campbell And His Nashville Street Band, from “B.J.C and his Nashville Street Band”

7.Jack Sims/Virgil Perkins, from “Folk Music U.S.A.: Vol. 1″

8.Howard Armstrong, from “Louie Bluie”

9.(autoharp) Kilby Snow, from “Masters of Old-time Country Autoharp”

10.(banjo) Winnie Winston, from “The Old-time Banjo Project”

11.(dulcimer) I-D Stamper, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

12.(banjo) Casey Helton, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

13.(fiddle and banjo) W.L. Gregory & Clyde Davenport, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

14.(piano) Blind John Davis, from “Blind John Davis”

15.”John Henry Medley” (banjo), Tony Trischka, from “Territory”

16.(mandolin and guitar) Jim & Bill Fuller, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

17.(piano) Janis Carper, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

18.(autoharp) Harvey Reid, from “The Autoharp Album”

19.(accordion) John Willis Tolliver, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

20.(Piano) Abe Spangler, from “Digital Library of Appalachia”

DOWNLOAD HERE

Part 5: The Folk Revival & Beyond

1.The Golden Gate Quartet & Josh White, from ”Freedom: At the Library of Congress (1940)”

2.Pete Seeger, from ”American Favorite Ballads,  Vol. 1″

3.Aaron Copland & London Symphony Orchestra, from “The Copland Collection: Orchestral & Ballet Works”

4.”Legend Of John Henry”, Hoyt Axton, from “The Greatest Stars Of Folk Music”

5.John Jacob Niles, from “I Wonder As I Wander”

6.Lonnie Donegan, from “The Excellence of…”

7.Harry Belafonte, from “The Original Calypso and Other Folk Songs”

8.Woody Guthrie & Cisco Houston, from “American Roots- A History Of American Folk Music”

9.”The Saga Of John Henry “,The Smothers Brothers, from “Sibling Revelry”

10.Odetta, from “Live in concert”

11.Paul Robeson, from “The Originals – Spirituals”

12.Paul Clayton, from “Dulcimer Songs and Solos”

13.Richard Dyer-Bennet, from “Richard Dyer-Bennet #5″

14.Bob Gibson, from “Yes I See”

15.Counterpoint, Robert De Cormier, conductor, from  “Let Me Fly: Music of Struggle, Solace, and Survival in Black America”

16.”Young John Henry”, The Shake ‘Em Ups, from ‘The Shake ‘Em Ups’

17.Bill Smith, from “Folk Jazz” 

18.The Gun Club, from “Da Blood Done Signed My Name”

19.Bruce Springsteen, from “We Shall Overcome – The Seeger Sessions” 

20.”John Henry Variations”, John Fahey, from “Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes”

DOWNLOAD HERE

   Photos: Leadbelly (everytime i try to picture John Henry i think of him), drawing of John Henry, statue of John Henry in West Virginia, “The Big Bend Tunnel” sign, a children’s book about John Henry

 

 

-Well, now to relax yourself, just watch Disney’s short animated movie about John Henry

-Let’s end with Mississippi Fred Mac Dowell

-Toward the end of the Anthology, we’ll come back to John Henry, this time with the work song variant sang by Mississippi John Hurt “Spike Driver’s Blues”….

 

 

 

 

“The taste for folk music”

For those who don’t know it yet, there’s a great music blog called “Wrath of the grapevine”  who have wonderful posts with really good writings to present the music. This week “The Irate Pirate” (that’s the mysterious name of the creator of the blog) has posted especially for me a sublime record by the traditionnal singer Texas Gladden recorded by Alan Lomax. I’d like to quote his introductory notes to the post as its really express what i feel about traditionnal folk music (and as a french guy, i don’t have the mastery of the english language  to write myself such good things).

“Like most musics, I suppose, the more you listen to folk music the more you develop a taste for it. But part of the fascination that’s particular to folk music is that you’ll hear bits and pieces of one song that you could have sworn you heard in a completely different song. And you’d be right. Because folk music is an evolved music, and like humans & chimpanzees, there are uncanny similarities lurking just below the surface that point to some invisible, unknowable ancestral precedent. And, like all things subject to evolution by natural selection, the essential parts are maintained and the extraneous, inconsequential bits fall aside. What this means in terms of folk music, particularly these old traditional ballads, is that while a song may be quirky and seemingly obtuse, at some level (often a non-conscious, irrational level), the song is deeply meaningful and helps people to negotiate the trials and uncertainties of this muddled mortal existence. And, of course, since folksong-evolution is an organic process in an oral tradition, sometimes bits and pieces get lost along the way and we’re left with only fragments (you could say this too is a product of natural selection: the part that remains is that which is most memorable). And since it is sung by people who weren’t professional musicians, it had to relate to things that everyday people could relate to, rather that abstruse musical concepts and the self-indulgent wankery that professional artists are susceptible to. The universal subjects are thus revealed: love, death, nature, heartbreak, childhood, remorse, dream/spiritual encounters, and leaving home. These themes can be found recurring in folk music and most great narrative art across time, from Homer to Shakespeare to Stan Brackage. It’s as if these subjects keep coming back because they’re the moments in our lives that stay with us, and we need songs & stories like these to help mark those moments and distill meaning from them. And while this music is rather difficult to listen to by modern standards, if you do take the time to listen to it, it’ll work it’s way under your skin and into the back of your mind, which is where it truly belongs. There it will take seed, whispering things to your irrational dream-mind, calling you back to time immemorial and rousing odd emotions like a broom rousing dust bunnies from corners and crevices.”

-I’m still working on my next post, “The John Henry Variations” and i already have selected 50 performances of this glorious song…

17 “John Hardy was a desperate little man” by The Carter Family

The Carter Family’s World

The Carter Family hold a very special place in the history of american vernacular music, their influence and legacy is immense, not only on country music but also on folk and rock artists of the past fifty years and the misterious charm of their music continues to haunt many comtemporary artists. Yet, the music of Sara, Maybelle and A.P. Carter  seems deceptively simple when you first hear it and it didn’t changed much during the fifteen years they played together. Most of the time Sara was the lead singer and played the autoharp or guitar backup while Maybelle was singing harmony and played the melody and the chords with her distinctive and unique guitar style. From time to time, A.P. Carter sang bass on the chorus or even sang lead on a few songs, his presence being in the same time very discrete but adding a unique touch to many of the Carter’s performances. Their repertoire was rooted in the folk traditions of the Virginia mountains where they lived: the folk ballads, the sentimental songs, the shape-note singing of the church, the Blues of the african-american, all this was melted in a new and unique style they applied to all their songs. It was A.P who was collecting all the time new material for their recordings, going “song hunting” in the small towns and cities of the South, sometimes with the help of a black songster called Lesley Riddle whose songs were included in the Carters’s repertoire. There’s a immediacy and in the same time a certain distance in their recordings that is quite hard to describe with words, at least for me, but the magical alchemy of Sara’s singing and Maybelle’s guitar playing makes one of the greatest american music ever recorded.

-On this page about the documentary movie “Will the circle be unbroken”, you can explore the history of the Carter Family through texts and photos.

-When the Carters came down to Bristol, Tennessee in 1927 to a recording session organized by Ralph Peer for the Okeh records company, they were just trying their luck, like many other mountain folks did in those years, at least it would provide a few days break from the daily routine life of hard work they had in their  Clinch Mountain home. Read more on those legendary sessions here.

-I strongly recommend the biography “Will you miss me when i’m gone”, written by Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirshberg. An essential reading for all the Carters fans…

-All of the sides recorded by the original Carter Family (Sara,Maybelle and A.P) are available at a very cheap price on two JSP box-sets  and there’s also a big box set issued by Bear Family, much more expensive but it contains a big hardcover book of 220 pages with essays, photos and lyrics to all the songs they recorded.

-If you don’t have already one of these, I offer you for now all the songs they recorded on may, 1928, the session which includes “John Hardy was a desperate little man”, the first Carter track that appear on the Anthology. There will be more in the future…

TRACK LIST:

1.Meet Me By The Moonlight Alone

2.Little Darling Pal Of Mine

3.Keep On The Sunny Side

4.Anchored In Love

5.John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man

6.I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow

7.Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone

8.River Of Jordan

9.Chewing Gum

10Wildwood Flower

11.I Have No One To Love Me (But The Sailor On The Deep Blue Sea)

12.Forsaken Love

DOWNLOAD HERE

The John Hardy Variations

“John Hardy” stands right next to “John Henry” as one of the most popular “figure” in the folk song tradition (In the Anthology too, they are next to each other). In fact, many people  combined the two songs and many  scholars confused the two characters as Alan Lomax once said. Both were black railroad workers but their story is quite different. The historical John Hardy killed a man during a crap game and was hanged for his crime. Before his execution he wanted to make peace with God so they sent a preacher and went to the river to baptise him. On the scaffold he claimed his repentance for his crime and probably sang some verses that would be included in the ballad that bore his name. The origin of the song itself is hard to determinate as it can be a mix of spontaneous verses of work songs and white balladry put around the story of John Hardy’s life. But, like many other songs, it was sang by black folks before whites began to sing it. And now, except for the famous Leadbelly rendition of the song and maybe a few other, all the recordings of the song that i heard were by white people.

-To read the whole story about John Hardy, the historical facts and the origins of the song, go to this page.

-On this page, you’ll read more about John Hardy’s execution and have the lyrics of the Carter Family’s version

-I’ve compiled 36 versions split in two parts. The song became a very popular instrumental piece in the folk and bluegrass world in the last fifty years so i featured many examples on guitar, banjo, and even dulcimer between the singing versions. There’s also a jazz one by The Duke Ellington Orchestra and a rock one by The Gun Club. The tune of the song has a “bluesy” feel to it that reminds us of his black origin and most of the performers put their own twist into it whithout changing the original tune. The variations in the lyrics are  very small in the contemporary performances compared to the old ones. In the Roy Harvey’s version, another folksong about a hanging (“The maid freed from the gallows” or “Gallows Pole”)” is mixed with the ballad of John Hardy.

TRACK LIST of part one:

(the title is “John Hardy” except where indicated)

1.Lead Belly, from ”Classic African American Ballads”

2.”John Holland”, Almeda Riddle, from Ozark Folksongs

3.Dick Rosmini, from “Adventures for 12 String, 6 String and Banjo”

4.Jake Krack, Bob Buckingham,Todd Clewell, Amy Buckingham, from the Digital Library of Appalachia

5.Odis Bird, from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

6.Luther Russell, from “Lowdown World (And Other Assorted Songs)”

7.Tommy Jarrell, Oscar Jenkins and Fred Cockerham, from “Down to the Cider Mill”

8.Buell Kazee, from “Buell Kazee Sings and Plays”

9.Norman Blake, from ”Live At McCabe’s”

10.Duke Ellington, from “Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra 1941″

11.Glen Smith, from “Clawhammer Banjo, Volume Three”

12.Country Gentlemen, from “On The Road (And More)”

13.Tony Rice, from “True Bluegrass Essentials”

14.Bonnie Russell and the Russell Family, from “Mountain Dulcimer Galax Style”

15.Chris Smither, from “Leave the Light On”

16.The Gun Club, from “Miami”

17.”John Hardy Blues”, Roy Harvey & Jess Johnston & the West Virginia Ramblers, from “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Super Rarities & Unissued Gems Of The 1920s & 30s”

18.”Johnny Hart”, Woody Guthrie, from “Muleskinner Blues: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 2″

DOWNLOAD HERE

TRACK LIST of part two:

1.Ollie Gilbert , from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

2.Paul Clayton, from “Dulcimer Songs and Solos”

3.Tommy Jarrell, from “Legacy of Tommy Jarrell, Volume 3: Come and Go with Me”

4.Glenn Yarbrough, from “The Roots Of Americana Folk & Blues”

5.Wayne Henderson, from “Made & Played”

6.Frank Proffitt, from “Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs”

7.Drunk, from “Phineas Gage”

8.J. Thibodeau, from “Everyday Shoes”

9.Pete Seeger , from “American Ballads”

10.Koerner, Ray & Glover, from “The Return of Koerner, Ray & Glover”

11.Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, from “Best of the Vanguard Years”

12.Walter Williams, from “Kentucky Mountain Music, Part 4″

13.Ernest V. Stoneman, from “The Unsung Father Of Country Music”

14.Dock Boggs, from “His Folkways Years 1963-1968″ 

15.John Hardy Fields Ward, Glen Smith & Wade Ward, from “Bluegrass from the Blue Ridge: A Half Century of Change – Country Band Music of Virginia”

16.Manfred Mann, from  “At Abbey Road”

17.Alvin Youngblood Hart, from  “Territory”

18.Peggy Seeger, from “Saturday Night at the Bull and Mouth”

DOWNLOAD HERE

-Here are two other great versions on Youtube:

16 “Charles Guiteau” by Kelly Harrell and The Virginia String Band

The Charles Guiteau Variations

We continue in our series of ballads about historical figures with “Charles Guiteau”, the murderer of James A. Garfield, third president of the United States after the Civil War. The song originated as a printed broadside and have been taken in folk tradition ever since. It was written in a form of a “goodnight”, a criminal’s confession before his execution.

Here’s a interesting quote about “goodnights” from “The Viking book of folk ballads”: “… executions were great public spectacles in the larger British cities. The curiosity of the populace, however, was seldom satisfied with merely watching the victim on the scaffold; of intenser interest was his angish during his final hours, particularly his edifying repentance. Broadside printers catered to this morbid taste with a species of ballads usually called “goodnights” tough also known as “gibbeting songs”, “execution ballads”, or “sorrowful lamentations”. The speaker in such pieces-they are invariably first person- purpots to be the criminal himself, but they were almost always the products of hack writers…” 

Guiteau’s “goodnight” is based on a New York broadside “The lamentation of James Rodgers”, from which it borrows entire verses, just remplacing the name of the criminal and the dates. It happens that Guiteau wrote some verses in prison but they were more religious than the ballad that keeps his notoriety alive. He actually recited fourteen verses of the Gospel of Matthew and a poem he wrote called “Going to the Lordy” before his hanging.

-Go to this page of Wikipedia to read the whole story of Charles Guiteau and if you want to read more, go here.

-We have also, on the “Remembering the old songs” website that i like a lot, a nice essay with the lyrics of the song.

-I have “collected” 13 performances of the song including a rather unusual Dutch version by a comtemporary band called “Meindert Talma & the Negroes”. I’ve included also a nice bluegrass instrumental by Tony Furtado called “Waiting for Guiteau” which is played as a medley with the fiddle tune “President Garfield’s Hornpipe”. And finally, there’s Bascom Lamar Lunsford epic recording for the Library of Congress of the song “Mr Garfield” which tells about the assassination of the president.

TRACK LIST:

1.Charles Giteau, Kelly Harrell, from the Anthology Of American Folk Music

2.Charles Guiteau, O.B. Campbell, from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

3.Charles Guiteau, A.L. Phipps and the Phipps Family, from  “Phipps Family – Faith, Love and Tragedy”

4.Charles Guitau, Roscoe Holcomb, from “The High Lonesome Sound” (It’s an instrumental banjo piece)

5.Charles Giteau, The New North Carolina Ramblers, from “Cotton Mill Blues”

6.Charles Guiteau, L.O. Smith, from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

7.Charles Guiteau, Loman Cansler, from “Missouri Folk Songs”

8.Charles Guiteau, Meindert Talma And The Negroes, from “Nu Geloof Ik Wat Er In De Bijbel Staat” (There are other “Anthology” covers on this record, but sang in dutch)

9.Charles Giteaux, Norman & Nancy Blake , from “Song Of The Hills: Appalachian Classics”

10.Charles Eutawa, Ollie Gilbert, from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

11.Charles Guiteau, Nora Carpenter, from the Digital Library of Appalachia

12.Waiting for Guiteau/ President Garfield’s Hornpipe ,Tony Furtado, from “Within Reach”

13.Mr Garfield, Bascom Lamar Lunford, from “Songs and Ballads of American History and of the Assassination of Presidents”

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

 

 

 

-As i wrote previously, Charles Guiteau wrote a poem when he was in prison and recited it in front of the audience that came to see him died on the scaffold. On this page you can read this poem.

This singer on Youtube took this poem and made a song out of it:

 

 

15 “Bandit Cole Younger” by Edward L. Crain

Edward L. Crain’s World

-From the liner notes of the re-issue of the Anthology we learn that Edward L. Crain was a texan who played guitar, fiddle and mandolin (on his recordings he apparently used only the guitar), worked on ranches and cattle drives and performed for various radio stations in the Forth Worth-Dallas  area. He was part of a few performers of “cowboy songs” in the 1930’s who were really “cowboys” or were advertised as such by record companies. —By doing a research on the web, i stumbled across an interview on the Old-time Herald website with Mark Wilson, an old-time music researcher who met Edward L. Crain and talks about him:”Of course, I got The Anthology of American Folk Music and on it there was this fellow, Edward L. Crain, singing “Cowboy Cole Younger,” and I realized he was the same fellow I used to watch a few years before on afternoon television. For a while Eddie ran a 15-minute show to advertise his cleaning business and would sing “There’s an Empty Cot in the Bunkhouse Tonight,” “Preacher and the Bear,” Milton Brown’s “My Mary” and other material like that. My father knew Eddie slightly so I called him up, borrowed a malfunctioning tape recorder and went over to Ashland where he lived. I was nervous as hell but Eddie was a very gentle man. He had been raised on a ranch outside Longview, Texas (he learned “Cole Younger” from an elderly ranch hand there) and had made hats until asthma forced him to move to Oregon. Jimmie Rodgers recommended that he try his hand in the music business and Eddie said he was in the studio when Rodgers recorded “TB Blues.” He said it was very sad because Jimmie was so short of breath that he would collapse onto a sofa for a half hour after every number. By the time I met him, Eddie had developed a bad case of emphysema himself and was never able to sing much when I visited in later years. Eddie also knew Goebel Reeves, whom he remembered visiting [when he was] in jail on some Mann act charge. In any event, Eddie went off to New York where he stayed in the YMCA and played at places like The Little Red Schoolhouse in the Village dressed up in full ranch regalia. Somehow he even got booked on a tour with Jean Harlow and Bing Crosby. He liked Harlow but claimed that Crosby was “stuck-up.” He said he tried to modernize his fare but Harlow told him to stick to the cowboy stuff. All of this, of course, gave me a rather different picture of the ways of folksong than found in those somewhat romanticized books I was reading! Ever since, I’ve always found that the real life of folk musicians is so much more fascinating than the scripts that Jean Thomas and her modern equivalents devise. That is why, whenever possible, I try to get full autobiographical statements into the records I edit. I might mention that when I played “Cowboy Cole Younger” for Eddie, he commented that it was running too fast, which was apparently a rather common problem on 78s. Eddie’s voice was somewhat nasal, I suppose, but rather sweeter than is apparent on those records, great as they are. His own favorite was “Little Blossom.” To this day the picture of Jean Harlow and Eddie Crain appearing on the same show still astonishes me and demonstrates how drastically standards of cultural acceptance have shifted in this country.”

-I only have 5 tracks by Edward L. Crain in my collection, but as usual, i may post more in the future if i find out more somewhere… The song ” Staving to death on a government clain” shows that he didn’t performed only cowboy-related types of songs. It was later recorded by The New Lost City Ramblers on their “Songs of the Depression” lp and also by Norman Blake.

TRACK LIST:

 

1.Bandit Cole Younger 

2.Starving To Death On A Government Claim 

3.Old Chisolm Trail

4.Little Joe The Wrangler

5.Cowboy’s Home Sweet Home

Download here

-If you want to hear more vintage cowboy songs recorded on 78rpm records i strongly recommend the two volumes compilations titled”When I was a cowboy” on Yazoo records

The Cole Younger Variations

Published as a “Broadside” in the late 1870’s, this song tells some of the moments in the life of the real outlaw Cole Younger who was part of the legendary Jesse James’s gang with his two brothers. The song was made as if Cole Younger himself was singing it and like in the old english ballads, focus on some details and shift from one action to another in an almost cinematograhic fashion.

-Go to this page to read about the song’s background and the lyrics of the Edward L. Crain’s version

-There’s a wikipedia page about Cole Younger here

-Here are 14 performances selected from commerciald and field recordings. The melodies used for the song varies a bit depending on the performers, some like Dock Boggs used the same melody as the “Roving Gambler” song.

TRACK LIST:

(Unless indicated the title is always “Cole Younger”)

1. Mr. and Mrs. Berry Sutterfield, from Ozark Folksongs

2.Bunkhouse Orchestra Deseret String Band, from  “The Round-Up”

3.Bandit Cole Younger,Lee Alexander, from “Gunfighters & Trail Riders”

4.Cole Younger Killed My Brother, Rita Hosking, from “Silver Stream”

5.Oscar Gilbert, from “Southern Journey Vol. 5: Bad Man Ballads – Songs of Outlaws and Desperadoes”

6.Dock Boggs, from “His Folkways Years 1963-1968″ 

7.William Edens, from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

8.Cole Younger Polka, Ry Cooder, from “The Long Riders (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)”

9.Virgil Lance , from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

10.Robert B.Stark, from Ozark Folksongs

11.R.W. Hampton, from “Troubadour”

12.Mrs Ben Daugherty, from Ozark Folksongs

13.Roger Welsch, from “Sweet Nebraska Land”

14.Ballad of Cole Younger, Troublesome Creek String Band, from “Fast as Time Can Take Me”

DOWNLOAD HERE

14 “My Name Is John Johanna” by Kelly Harrell & The Virginia String Band

Kelly Harrell’s World

Virginian Kelly Harrell was one of the pionneers singers in the history of country music. He recorded many sides for Okeh and Victor between 1925 and 1929 where his career stopped both because of the Depression and his inability to play an instrument. For the same reason, the record companies had to employ backing musicians for him throughout his recording career. He was a good hillbilly singer but unfortunately  the musical background on most of his records is not appropriate at all and sounds very “classical” and old-fashioned behind his rough voice. The exception is the few sides he recorded in 1927 with fellow musicians from Virginia, notably the great fiddler Posey Rorer. The two sides that Harry Smith included in the Anthology, “John Johanna” and “Charles Guiteau” were from that session. After this, Harrell returned to his previous work in the textile mills of Virginia and died in 1942.

-Kelly Harrell also wrote material that other country singers recorded, notably Jimmie Rodgers. Here’s a song that Harrell wrote, sang by the great yodel singer: Away out on the mountains-Jimmy Rodgers MP3

-Here are 16 sides that i selected, the first four ones being from the session with The Virginia String Band, the others are his versions of folk “standards” that would be recorded a lot over the years by many artists. (Other sides by Kelly Harrell appeared on previous compilations i’ve made.)

TRACK LIST:

1.Oh, My Pretty Monkey

2.In the Shadow of the Pine

3.I Want A Nice Little Fellow

4.I Love my Sweetheart The Best

5.Hand Me Down My Walking Cane

6.The Cuckoo She’s A Fine Bird

7.Bright Sherman Valley

8.Beneath The Weeping Willow Tree

9.O! Molly Dear Go Ask Your Mother

10.The Wreck On the Southern Old 97

11.I’m Going Back to North Carolina

12.Wild Bill Jones

13.I Was Born About 10.000 Years Ago

14.I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again

15.Rovin’ Gambler

16.New River Train

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

 

 

 

The John Johanna’s Variations

Usually known under the title “The state of Arkansas” the song tells, in the first person, the misfortunes of a wandering man who came to work in Arkansas, and whatever this guy’s name was, John Johanna, Sanford Barnes or Bill Stafford, he sure got a hard time down there. The song itself dates back to the ministrel era and the tune most used for it is common to many other songs (Maggie Walker, The Girl I Left Behind…). Again this kind of melody have a very modal and “bluesy” feel to it (you can sing it with minor or major chords accompaniement whithout changing a single note).

-The lyrics and the melody are on this two pages: one and two

-I’ve compiled 22 performances for you and as usual i checked and picked some field recordings from three websites which are goldmines for the traditionnal music lover: The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection (the tracks from this website appeared under the “Ozark Folksongs” name on my compilations), The Max Hunter Folksong Collection and The Digital Library of Appalachia

TRACK LIST:

1.My Name is John Johanna, Kelly Harrell and The Virginia String Band, from the Anthology

2.My name is Sanford Barnes, Mrs. Bowen Stuart, from Ozark Folksongs

3.State of Arkansas, Mighty Ghosts Of Heaven, from ”Mighty Ghosts of Heaven”

4.State of Arkansas, Earl Taylor & Jim McCall with The Stoney Mountain Boys, from ”24 Bluegrass Favorites”

5.Old Arkansas, The Iron Mountain String Band, from ”Walkin’ in the Parlor: Old Time Music of the Southern Mountains”

6.State Of Arkansas, Almanac Singers feat Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger, from “Which Side Are You On? The Best Of The Almanac Singers”

7.State of Arkansas, Slim Critchlow, from ”Cowboy Songs: Crooked Trail Holbrook”

8.Sanford Barnes, Bill Baker, from  The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

9.State of Arkansas, Tom Rush, from  ”Trolling For Owls”

10.State Of Arkansas, Rosalie Sorrels, from ”The Lonesome Roving Wolves”

11.State of Arkansas (My Name is Terry Roberts), Pete Seeger, from ”Gazette, Vol. 1″

12.John Johanna, The Mill City Grinders, from ”No Corn In the Crib”

13.State of Arkansas, Gus Mahon, from Ozark Folksongs

14.My Name Is John Johanna, John Cohen, from  ”Stories The Crow Told Me”

15.John Johanna, David Grisman with Mike Seeger, from ”Dawg Duos”

16.John Johanna, The Mutineers, from “Where Mockingbirds Roam”

17.Bill Stafford, Virgil Lance, from  The Max Hunter Folksong Collection

18.Old Arkansas, Art Stamper, from ”Wake Up Darlin’ Corey”

19.John Joe Hannah, Phil Jamison, from The Digital Library of Appalachia

20.John Joe Hannah, Peter Gott, from The Digital Library of Appalachia

21.My Name Is John Johanna, Charlie Parr, from ”Tribute To The Anthology Of American Folk Music By Harry Smith”

22.Uncle Dave’s Travels Part 1 (Misery In Arkansas), Uncle Dave Macon, from ”Classic Sides 1924 – 1938″

Photos: Art Stamper and Rosalie Sorrels (Newport Folk Festival 1966)

DOWNLOAD HERE                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

 

 

 

Here’s a gem of a clip: Gene Bluestein and his son Evo singing “The State of Arkansas”

Update link

I updated the Chubby Parker post so now you’ll have 21 tracks to download instead of 7.

Hope you enjoy…