Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry of the Soggy Mountain Boys performing the Appalachian classic Man Of Constant Sorrow.
CD Review
Man of Constant Sorrow (And other Timeless Mountain Ballads), various artists, Yazoo Records, 2002
Recently I did a CD review in this space of now old- time urban blues folk revival 1960s minute songs, The New City Blues, that featured songs from earlier times down in places like the country blues-rich Mississippi Delta as covered by the aspiring folk artists of that latter period. As part of that review I mentioned that my old-time yellow brick road merry prankster summer of love, 1967 version, San Francisco Great American West night friend , Peter Paul Markin, a few years older than I am, had been instrumental in “tuning” me into those classic songs and folk music in general. Having grown up in backwoods (okay, back ocean) Olde Saco up in Maine and not near any folk centers like Cambridge I was clueless back then about anything except the burgeoning psychedelic rock scene and childhood Bobby Darin/Connie Francis vanilla rock music.
That said, Peter Paul tried, tried like hell, to interest me in even earlier roots music, the music of Appalachia, the hills and hollows country, hard coal- mining and hard-scrabble farming country living off the leavings of the great trek west many years before. No sale, No sale for a long time. Then watching the George Clooney film Brother, Where Art Thou? and listening to the soundtrack from the film about a decade ago I got a little hooked. The finishing touches came when I heard some woman (later identified to me as Emmy Lou Harris) singing Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies on some off-hand CD someone was playing. Strangely this was a song I knew from the yellow brick road days because Peter Paul played it to me several times as sung by the late gravelly-voiced folk singer/historian Dave Von Ronk. Like I said no sale, no way, turn the damn thing off, please.
So tastes change, or develop, but that is not the important story here. The real story here is why Peter Paul was so insistent on my understanding this mountain music, of seeing why he had come to see it as important. He had resisted the draw of the hills and hollows too. He had started out musically tuned into the great rock and roll jail break-out of the mid-1950s with Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and all the other classic (now classic) rock artists, male and female. He had no kid time for old foggy parent music like this. But that word parent is the key to why he tried to drag me in his wake. His father was from down there, down in the hills and hollows, down in coal-mining country. Down in Hazard, Kentucky a place known far and wide in song and hard fighting labor history and a place highlighted in Michael Harrington’s famous book on serious poverty places, The Other America.
This is the music that Peter Paul’s father grew up on in those lonely 1930s Saturday night whiskey-drinking (moonshine whiskey of course) back road barn dances. Or just hanging around some porch guitar, fiddle, mandolin, whatever, whiling away the hours until Sunday church and Monday back-breaking work again. So it was in his DNA, hard-wired into his DNA. That is why, I think anyway, he tried to force feed that old Dave Von Ronk cover
to me back in the day. And maybe by osmosis, or something, it finally rubbed off on me.
You should know this CD, this Man Of Constant Sorrow CD, if you are clueless about mountain music like I was, has a veritable American songbook-mountain music segment(and Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music songbook too) “greatest hits” contained in it. As with many oral traditions, mountain music, as it passed from generation to generation, locale to locale, got twisted around, got words added, ideas added and so on so that some of the versions here are, according to Peter Paul, different from those that he first heard. What is the same though is that the subjects, murder, mayhem, adultery, false love, lost love, very false love, abandonment, very, very false love, too much whiskey Saturday night and too little repentance Sunday morning, and, sometimes, true love get plenty of mention. Just the kind of subjects that the folk in hills and hollows (Markin said I should put in at least one hollas to show respect but what can I do) of Appalachia wanted to hear sung about. And maybe still do.
Showing posts with label michael harrington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label michael harrington. Show all posts
Friday, August 03, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
On The 50th Anniversary Of Publication Of Michael Harrington's "The Other America"- Another Personal Note On The Class Struggle
Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Iris Dement performing "Pretty Saro" in the film "Song Catcher".
DVD Review
The Appalachians, 3 DVD set, various commentators and mountain musicians, PBS Productions, 2005
I have spend no little time over the past several months putting roots music, the historical roots of mountain music in the hills and hollows of the Appalachians, especially Kentucky and my own personal connection with the place as a son of a coal mining son of the region together. This film documentary takes two of those strands, roots music and the history of the region and tries to explain the values behind the music and behind the pioneer spirit that drove some of our forbears to those lonely hill and hollows to eke out a an existence and create a cultural gradient that is not always understandable to those of us not immersed in that milieu. Except those virtues of hard work, hard religion, hard times and hard liquor are not all that far from the mainstream experiences, at least of earlier generations. In a sense this film is a tribute to a vanishing breed, a breed the mined the coal in the eastern mines, and farmed those hard rock acres. I like to think that some of those virtues and, of course, the music would not die.
Along the way this documentary traces the roots of the original Northern European settlers as they fled, or were pushed , from the East Coast and sought the new virgin lands of the then ‘west’ in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their uneasy relationship, finally untenable, with the various indigenous Native American tribes in the 19th century. The film also points out the gathering storm over the slavery issue that would literally become the “brothers’ war” in much of the region in the mid-19th century civil war. In the post- Civil War period the outlines of a distinctive Appalachian cultural gradient became recognizable through an exploitation of the natural resources of the area generated by the needs of the emerging industrial age, especially mining of the abundant coal fields. The struggle between labor and capital takes center place as the driving force from then until the near present. This includes the titanic struggles for mine workers union recognition, the demise of labor intensive coal mining and the rise of mass high tech mining that has ravished the land.
But, mainly this film is an exposition on the music. Without straining credulity "mountain music" is the music of the simple folk of Appalachia, those who worked hard in the coal mines, on the hard scrabble farms and in the isolated mills of the region. This was their Saturday night entertainment and with the advent of radio was a unifying cultural experience. The songs "speak" of hard and lonely lives, the beauty of the then pristine countryside, the usual vagaries of love and lost and the mysterious ways of a very personal, if arbitrary, god. Throw in a few upbeat tunes reflecting the love of "corn" liquor, women and the sometimes funny side of coping with life's trials and tribulations and you have the mountain version of the folk experience. Sound familiar? Sure it does, except, it is done with simple guitar, a blazing fiddle and, hopefully, a full-bodied mandolin.
John Prine, Paradise Lyrics
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat Chorus:
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Repeat Chorus:
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Repeat Chorus:
Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow Lyrics
I am the man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to ol' Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.
The place where he was born and raised
For six long years I've been in trouble,
no pleasure here on earth I've found
For in this world, I'm bound to ramble,
I have no friends to help me now.
He has no friends to help him now
It's fair thee well, my old true lover,
I never expect to see you again.
For I'm bound to ride that Northern Railroad,
perhaps I'll die upon this train
Perhaps he'll die upon this train
You can bury me in some deep valley,
For many years where I may lay.
And you may learn to love another
while I am sleeping in my grave.
While he is sleeping in his grave
Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
My face you never will see no more
But there is one promise that is given,
I'll meet you on Gods golden shore
He'll meet you on God's golden shore
Big Rock Candy Mountain
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Ralph Stanley - O Death Lyrics
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I'll fix your feet til you cant walk
I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very air, come and go with me
I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you're treatin' me
You've close my eyes so I can't see
Well you're hurtin' my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don't take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
The Stanley Brothers - Angel Band Lyrics
The latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph is begun
O come Angel Band, come & around me stand
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
I know I'm near the holy ranks of friends & kindred dear
I've brushed the dew on Jordan's banks, the crossing must be near
I've almost gained my Heavenly home, my spirit loudly sings
The Holy ones, behold they come, I hear the noise of wings
O bear my longing heart to Him who bled & died for me
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin & gives me victory
DVD Review
The Appalachians, 3 DVD set, various commentators and mountain musicians, PBS Productions, 2005
I have spend no little time over the past several months putting roots music, the historical roots of mountain music in the hills and hollows of the Appalachians, especially Kentucky and my own personal connection with the place as a son of a coal mining son of the region together. This film documentary takes two of those strands, roots music and the history of the region and tries to explain the values behind the music and behind the pioneer spirit that drove some of our forbears to those lonely hill and hollows to eke out a an existence and create a cultural gradient that is not always understandable to those of us not immersed in that milieu. Except those virtues of hard work, hard religion, hard times and hard liquor are not all that far from the mainstream experiences, at least of earlier generations. In a sense this film is a tribute to a vanishing breed, a breed the mined the coal in the eastern mines, and farmed those hard rock acres. I like to think that some of those virtues and, of course, the music would not die.
Along the way this documentary traces the roots of the original Northern European settlers as they fled, or were pushed , from the East Coast and sought the new virgin lands of the then ‘west’ in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their uneasy relationship, finally untenable, with the various indigenous Native American tribes in the 19th century. The film also points out the gathering storm over the slavery issue that would literally become the “brothers’ war” in much of the region in the mid-19th century civil war. In the post- Civil War period the outlines of a distinctive Appalachian cultural gradient became recognizable through an exploitation of the natural resources of the area generated by the needs of the emerging industrial age, especially mining of the abundant coal fields. The struggle between labor and capital takes center place as the driving force from then until the near present. This includes the titanic struggles for mine workers union recognition, the demise of labor intensive coal mining and the rise of mass high tech mining that has ravished the land.
But, mainly this film is an exposition on the music. Without straining credulity "mountain music" is the music of the simple folk of Appalachia, those who worked hard in the coal mines, on the hard scrabble farms and in the isolated mills of the region. This was their Saturday night entertainment and with the advent of radio was a unifying cultural experience. The songs "speak" of hard and lonely lives, the beauty of the then pristine countryside, the usual vagaries of love and lost and the mysterious ways of a very personal, if arbitrary, god. Throw in a few upbeat tunes reflecting the love of "corn" liquor, women and the sometimes funny side of coping with life's trials and tribulations and you have the mountain version of the folk experience. Sound familiar? Sure it does, except, it is done with simple guitar, a blazing fiddle and, hopefully, a full-bodied mandolin.
John Prine, Paradise Lyrics
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat Chorus:
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
Repeat Chorus:
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Repeat Chorus:
Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow Lyrics
I am the man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to ol' Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.
The place where he was born and raised
For six long years I've been in trouble,
no pleasure here on earth I've found
For in this world, I'm bound to ramble,
I have no friends to help me now.
He has no friends to help him now
It's fair thee well, my old true lover,
I never expect to see you again.
For I'm bound to ride that Northern Railroad,
perhaps I'll die upon this train
Perhaps he'll die upon this train
You can bury me in some deep valley,
For many years where I may lay.
And you may learn to love another
while I am sleeping in my grave.
While he is sleeping in his grave
Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
My face you never will see no more
But there is one promise that is given,
I'll meet you on Gods golden shore
He'll meet you on God's golden shore
Big Rock Candy Mountain
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Ralph Stanley - O Death Lyrics
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I'll fix your feet til you cant walk
I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very air, come and go with me
I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim
O, Death
O, Death
Won't you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you're treatin' me
You've close my eyes so I can't see
Well you're hurtin' my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don't take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
The Stanley Brothers - Angel Band Lyrics
The latest sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run
My strongest trials now are past, my triumph is begun
O come Angel Band, come & around me stand
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
O bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home
I know I'm near the holy ranks of friends & kindred dear
I've brushed the dew on Jordan's banks, the crossing must be near
I've almost gained my Heavenly home, my spirit loudly sings
The Holy ones, behold they come, I hear the noise of wings
O bear my longing heart to Him who bled & died for me
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin & gives me victory
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