The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- ***Those Appalachian Hills Back Home- Alan Lomax Presents The Music Of The Eastern American Mountains

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of The Kingston Trio performing "Tom Dooley" (sanitized version).

DVD Review

Appalachian Journey, American Patchwork Series, narrated by Alan Lomax, PBS Home Video, 1990

Anyone who noted the narrator of this project, the late Alan Lomax, the musical history of the Appalachian Mountains, the music of my father and his forbears going back a long, long way, knows that that name alone stands for a deep understanding of the roots of the American songbook. He, and before and with him, his father, John, had probably recorded more roots music, and various types of roots music, than anyone that I know of, including the various Seegers. That said, this PBS production is a very good primer about the roots of the music that some people created, and carried over with them from the old countries of northern Europe, mainly the British Isles.

Brother Lomax takes us through the evolution of this music of the isolated mountain people (including a tip of the hat to Native Americans) from the 19th century migration to the West, a time of lonely nights and hard work that created a desperate need to have an outlet on that hard fought rest on festive Saturday nights. Lomax, moreover, goes in some detail about the origins, some rather saucy, of many songs that came out of local mountain experiences such as “Tom Dooley” and “John Henry” that were obligatory covers for any aspiring folk singer in the 1960s folk revival.

He also spends time and effort on making the important connections, necessary connections by the way, between the white mountain experience and the black slavery experience as those cultural gradients mixed in the 19th struggle to “tame” the wilderness, especially the trek of the railroads westward through those hard scrabble mountains. Finally, Lomax moves the story forward to the more modern, and I would argue, less primitive sound of bluegrass and modern country dancing. Included here are interviews with some good old mountain men and women. At one hour this is a very quick primer to drive your interest in this type of music forward. I might have long denied its influence on me but somewhere deep in the recesses of my genes that old mountain seems to be calling me back as I grow older.

“Tom Dooley”

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.
You left her by the roadside
Where you begged to be excused;
You left her by the roadside,
Then you hid her clothes and shoes.

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

You took her on the hillside
For to make her your wife;
You took her on the hillside,
And ther you took her life.

You dug the grave four feet long
And you dug it three feet deep;
You rolled the cold clay over her
And tromped it with your feet.

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"Trouble, oh it's trouble
A-rollin' through my breast;
As long as I'm a-livin', boys,
They ain't a-gonna let me rest.

I know they're gonna hang me,
Tomorrow I'll be dead,
Though I never even harmed a hair
On poor little Laurie's head."

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"In this world and one more
Then reckon where I'll be;
If is wasn't for Sheriff Grayson,
I'd be in Tennesee.

You can take down my old violin
And play it all you please.
For at this time tomorrow, boys,
Iit'll be of no use to me."

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"At this time tomorrow
Where do you reckon I'll be?
Away down yonder in the holler
Hangin' on a white oak tree.

Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
You killed poor Laurie Foster,
And you know you're bound to die.

"Big Bill Broonzy John Henry lyrics"



When John Henry was a little baby boy, sitting on his papa's knee
Well, he picked up his hammer and a little piece of steel, said
"Hammers gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
The
captain
said to John Henry, "I'm gonna bring that steam drill around
I'm gonna bring that steam drill out on the job
I'm gonna whip that steel on down, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)

John Henry told his captain, "Lord, a man ain't nothing but a man
But before I'd let your steam drill beat me down,
I'd die with a hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
John Henry said to his shaker, "Shaker, why don't you sing?
Because I'm swinging thirty pounds from my hips on down,
just to listen to that cold steel ring, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
Now the captain said to John Henry, "I believe that mountain's caving in"

John Henry said right back to the captain,
"Ain't nothing but my hammer sucking wind, Lord, Lord" (repeat 4 times)
Now the man that invented the steam drill, he thought he was mighty fine
But John Henry drove fifteen feet,
the steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord (repeat 4 times)
John Henry hammered in the mountains, his hammer was striking fire
But he worked so hard, it broke his poor, poor heart,
and he laid down his hammer and he died, Lord, Lord (repeat 4 times)

*From The Hills And Hollows Of Appalachia- The Banjo Of Roscoe Holcomb

From The Hills And Hollows Of Appalachia- The Banjo Of Roscoe Holcomb

CD Review

An untamed sense of control, Roscoe Holcomb, Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 2003


I mentioned in an earlier review of the music of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash that what really rekindled my, admittedly, marginal youthful interest in that pair and in the mountain music that drove my father’s youth, was viewing their performances (via DVD series) on an old black and white Pete Seeger television folk show, “Rainbow Quest” from the mid-1960s when Johnny and June showed their stuff. As fate would have it one majestic mountain banjo player, Roscoe Holcomb, was featured on that same DVD.
In a review of that Holcomb performance I said, in part, the following:

“…Also included on this DVD is a performance by the legendary Kentucky mountain music man Roscoe Holcomb that John Cohen, a previously reviewed performer on this series with the New Lost City Ramblers, did great service to the folk revival by bringing out of the Kentucky hills in the early 1960s to the wilds of ….. Greenwich Village…”

And that only told part of the story. Although I, usually, can only take tinny-voiced mountain musicians in small doses I found that here, as sometimes happens when I listen to jazz, the thing builds up and you don’t want to stop it after just a few selections (there are 24 here). Highlights here are the classic “Single Girl (Carter Family),” “Man Of Constant Sorrow,” “Sitting On Top Of This World,” and ‘Darling Cory.”. Yes, this is all classic stuff. Can’t you just feel that Appalachian mountain breeze coming down the line?

I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow Lyrics

(In constant sorrow through his days)

I am a man of constant sorrow
I've seen trouble all my day.
I bid farewell to old 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 pleasures here on earth I found
For in this world I'm bound to ramble
I have no friends to help me now.

[chorus] He has no friends to help him now

It's fare thee well my old lover
I never expect to see you again
For I'm bound to ride that northern railroad
Perhaps I'll die upon this train.

[chorus] Perhaps he'll die upon this train.

You can bury me in some deep valley
For many years where I may lay
Then you may learn to love another
While I am sleeping in my grave.

[chorus] While he is sleeping in his grave.

Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger
My face you'll never see no more.
But there is one promise that is given
I'll meet you on God's golden shore.

[chorus] He'll meet you on God's golden shore.

*I Feel Those Appalachian Mountain Breezes Once Again- I Hear Those Lonesome Banjos And Fiddles Calling- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of one of the fiddlers on the CD under review, J.P. Fraley.

CD Review

The Art Of Old-Time Mountain Music, Various Artists, Rounder Records, 2002

Over the past couple of years my interest in mountain music, the music that formed part of my parental heritage, has increased as a quick search of such entries in this space attest to. Those reviews have run the gamut from the famous, and important, work of the various Carter Family combinations (and generations) to the "discovery" by the folk revivalists of the 1960s of the likes of banjo player Roscoe Holcomb to the interest by urban folk artists of that period like the Greenbriar Boys and The New Lost City Ramblers. One of the driving forces of that simple, plain music is the banjo. Another is the fiddle. On this CD we get various combinations of both. To our benefit.

Previously, in reviewing another Rounder traditional music series CD (featuring fiddles) , in this space, I noted that I was also reviewing a tribute album celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Appleseed Records (2007), now a fixture in preserving folk and protest music. I mentioned there that certain record labels have gained a niche for themselves in music history by establishing, driving, or preserving certain traditions. That is the case here with Rounder Records who for over forty years has put together off-beat, but extremely valuable, compilations of traditional music from the shores of Cape Breton to Appalachia to Western America. This CD holds to that fine and honorably tradition.

For this CD there is also a very informative booklet (as is usual with Rounder products), also including plenty of discology-type information about each track. That leaves the final question of what is good here. This compilation, like the tradition fiddle CD is driven more by mood than anything else. The mood here, as described in the headline- mountain breezes, lonesome fiddles and slam jam banjos (and other back-up instruments, of course). And you should think of this compilation that way as well, especially as some of the pieces are very short. Here are few to feast on: Roscoe Holcombe’s Rocky Mountain, Protecting the Innocent, The House Carpenter,, Kicked up a Devil of a Row, and Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.

******************

This version of the lyrics date back to the early 1800s.

O bury me not on the lone prairie-culled from Wikipedia

"O bury me not on the lone prairie."
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.

He had wasted and pined 'til o'er his brow
Death's shades were slowly gathering now
He thought of home and loved ones nigh,
As the cowboys gathered to see him die.

"O bury me not on the lone prairie
Where coyotes howl and the wind blows free
In a narrow grave just six by three—
O bury me not on the lone prairie"

"It matters not, I've been told,
Where the body lies when the heart grows cold
Yet grant, o grant, this wish to me
O bury me not on the lone prairie."

"I've always wished to be laid when I died
In a little churchyard on the green hillside
By my father's grave, there let me be,
O bury me not on the lone prairie."

"I wish to lie where a mother's prayer
And a sister's tear will mingle there.
Where friends can come and weep o'er me.
O bury me not on the lone prairie."

"For there's another whose tears will shed.
For the one who lies in a prairie bed.
It breaks me heart to think of her now,
She has curled these locks, she has kissed this brow."

"O bury me not..." And his voice failed there.
But they took no heed to his dying prayer.
In a narrow grave, just six by three
They buried him there on the lone prairie.

And the cowboys now as they roam the plain,
For they marked the spot where his bones were lain,
Fling a handful o' roses o'er his grave
With a prayer to God his soul to save.[10]

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive"

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Patty Loveless performing the classic coal country song "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive".


In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

Markin comment:

I can add nothing here to the song, except that the struggle portrayed in the accompanying film review on this date, "Harlan County, U.S.A.", is a better way to proceed.

Darrell Scott- You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive Lyrics


In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I traced my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
"You'll never leave Harlan alive"

Oh my grandfather's dad crossed the Cumberland Mountains
Where he took a pretty girl to be his bride
Said "Won't you walk with me out the mouth of this holler
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive"

Where the sun comes up about ten in the mornin'
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you'll fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinkin'
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
Till a man from the northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills
Said "I'll pay you for your minerals"
But he never left Harlan alive

Grandma sold out cheap and they moved out west of Pikeville
To a farm where Big Richaldn River winds
And I bet they danced them a jig
And they laughted and sang a new song
"Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive"

But the times got hard and tobacco wasn't selling
And old grandad knew what he'd do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
And sent the money back to grandma
But he never left Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the mornin'
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you'll fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinkin'
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

You'll never leave Harlan alive

*Opposition To Levelling The Mountains To Get the Coal- Free The Resisters

Click On Title To Link To Article About Resistance To Levelling The Hills Down In Coal Country And Links To More Information About That Struggle.

Commentary

The above cited link provides information about the struggle down in Kentucky and West Virginia against the efforts various energy companies to work the again sought after coal in the historic coal regions, minus the unionized (and many times heroic class warrior) mine workers. Readers of this site, may or may not know of my (secondary) roots to coal country but these efforts to resist the ravaging of Appalachia bear attention. Frankly, although I know that the coal country singer/songwriter Kathy Mattea is involved in the efforts to publicize this issue I am not, at the moment, that familiar with the particulars down there. But I will be commenting more on this issue. Fr now though, the corporate cast of characters should, instinctively, tell the tale of where our sympathies should lie. Later.