Showing posts with label mountain harp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mountain harp. Show all posts

Monday, December 09, 2019

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-The Stanley Brothers

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.


Jacobs Vision
- Lyrics & Chords


G
Halle lujah to Jesus who died on the tree
D G
To raise up this ladder of mercy for me

Press onward, climb upward, the top is in view

D G
There's a crown of bright glory a waiting for you

As Jacob was traveling, was weary one day
While at night on a stone for a pillow did lay
A vision appeared of a ladder so high
It stood on the earth while the top reached the sky
Chorus


This ladder is tall and yet so well made
Stood thousands of years and never decayed
High winds from the heavens they reel and they rock
But the angels they guard it from bottom to top
Chorus

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-Frank Warner

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.


*In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-Jean Ritchie

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Friday, December 11, 2009

*In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"The House Carpenter" — Clarence Ashley (1930)

Click on the title to link to a presentation by the artist or of the song listed in the headline.

The year 2009 has turned into something a year of review of the folk revival of the 1960s. In November I featured a posting of many of the episodes (via “YouTube”) of Pete Seeger’s classic folk television show from the 1960s, “Rainbow Quest”. I propose to do the same here to end out the year with as many of the selections from Harry Smith’s seminal “Anthology Of American Folk Music,” in one place, as I was able to find material for, either lyrics or "YouTube" performances (not necessarily by the original performer). This is down at the roots, for sure

House Carpenter Lyrics

Well met, well met, my own true love
Well met, well met, cried she
I've just returned from the salt, salt sea
And it's all for the love of thee

I could have married a King's daughter there
She would have married me
But I have forsaken my King's daughter there
It's all for the love of thee

Well, if you could have married a King's daughter there
I'm sure you're the one to blame
For I am married to a house carpenter
And I'm sure he's a fine young man

Forsake, forsake your house carpenter
And come away with me
I'll take you where the green grass grows
On the shores of sunny Italy

So up she picked her babies three
And gave them kisses, one, two, three
Saying "take good care of your daddy while I'm gone
And keep him good company."

Well, they were sailin' about two weeks
I'm sure it was not three
When the younger of the girls, she came on deck
Sayin' she wants company

"Well, are you weepin' for your house and home?
Or are you weepin' for your babies three?"
"Well, I'm not weepin' for my house carpenter
I'm weepin' for my babies three."

Oh what are those hills yonder, my love
They look as white as snow
Those are the hill of heaven, my love
You and I'll never know

Oh what are those hills yonder, my love
They look as dark as night
Those are the hills of hell-fire my love
Where you and I will unite

Oh twice around went the gallant ship
I'm sure it was not three
When the ship all of a sudden, it sprung a leak
And it drifted to the bottom of the sea

Sunday, October 25, 2009

*Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part One-The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Jean Ritchie

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Jean Ricthie performing "Blue Diamond MInes". I could not find a clip of her doing "Nottamun Town". Sorry.

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001


"Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc One; Woody Guthrie on “Hard Travelin’”, Big Bill Broonzy on “Black , Brown And White”, Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”, Josh White on “One Meat Ball” Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”, Cisco Houston on “Midnight Special”, The Weavers on “Wasn’t That A Time”, Glenn Yarborough on “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue”, Odetta on “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain”, The New Lost City Ramblers on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on “San Francisco Bay Blues”, Peggy Seeger on “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Hoyt Axton on “Greenback Dollar” and Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”."


Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”. My people, on my father’s side, came out of the Kentucky mountains, coal country, Hazard and Harlan County. The class struggle at its rawest in Appalachia- everyone knew “which side were you on” without hesitation. Jean Ritchie and her people also came out of those mountains. Maybe that is why this unabashedly citified reviewer hears some long lost cord when he hears this mountain. It must be in the genes. I now know that is the place where, second-hand and in a very round about manner, I learned about which side I am on.


JEAN RITCHIE LYRICS, Digital Tradition file name: NOTTMUN.

In fair Nottamun town, not a soul would look up,
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down,
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down,
To show me the way to fair Nottamun town.
I rode a grey horse, a mule roany mare,
Grey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back,
Grey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back,
There wa'nt a hair on her be-what was coal black.

She stood so still, she threw me to the dirt,
She tore -a my hide and she bruised my shirt.
From saddle to stirrup I mounted again,
And on my ten toes I rode over the plain.

Met the King and the Queen and a company more,
A-riding behind and a-marching before
Came a stark-naked drummer a-beating a drum
With his heels in his bosom come marching along.

They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did look gay,
They talked all the while, not a word they did say,
I bought me a quart to drive gladness away
And to stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day.

Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone,
Ten thousand stood round me, and yet I's alone.
Took my hat in my hand for to keep my head warm,
Ten thousand got drownded that never was born.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Deep In The Hills And Hollows Of Mountain Country- “The “Appalachians” In Story And Song

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

Thursday, June 18, 2009

*Continuing The Bluegrass Tradition- A Documentary

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of the bluegrass group Nickel Creek in the film documentary "Bluegrass Journey"

DVD Review

Bluegrass Journey: A Documentary, various artists, 2004


If someone was to ask me quickly of f the top of my head to name a bluegrass group I would probably jump on the name Bill Monroe and his various bands. After that it would be the figures from the 1960s folk revival like The New Lost City Ramblers and the Greenbriar Boys. They while not , for the most part, raised in the country and thus bred to this type of music saw it as an important form of roots music and did as much as anyone to publicize it to urban audiences back then . I think, however, that most people who are not aficionados would have stopped at Bill Monroe. This film documentary, while paying due tribute to the pioneer efforts of Monroe and his combing of various genres to form what has since come to be called bluegrass, concentrates on the apparently thriving modern “real” (meaning people from the country are playing it) bluegrass music movement. So of you are trying to orient yourself to bluegrass music, what is currently good (and not good) this is not a bad place to start. Moreover, the bluegrass festival (rain and all) that forms the centerpiece for this exploration of the music features some very proficient guitar, fiddle, and above all mandolin players. You will feel right at home, especially with Tony Rice on "Shenandoah" and the Nickel Creek band (with a great fiddle player)on several tunes.


Man Of Constant Sorrow

Im a man of constant sorrow,
Ive seen trouble all my days.
Ill say goodbye to colorado
Where I was born and partly raised.

Your mother says Im a stranger;
My face youll never see no more.
But theres one promise, darling,
Ill see you on gods golden shore.

Through this open world Im a-bound to ramble,
Through ice and snows, sleet and rain,
Im a-bound to ride that mornin railroad,
Perhaps Ill die on that train.

Im going back to colorado,
The place that Ive started from.
If Id knowed how bad youd treat me,
Honey I never would have come.