Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- *Songs For Aging……Jug Band Music Aficionados

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Singer Cynthia Fabian Leading The Band In "Yes Baby Yes, No Baby No". Fun Stuff.

CD Review

Washboard Slim& The Blue Lights: Jug Band Music For The 21st Century, Jugabilly Records, 1996

Yes, I know I have spent many, probably too many hours, on this endless folkie tour. Christ, now I am touting the virtues of jug band music. Well there is a method to my madness. I have recently, with no regret, featured the individual later work of Jim Kweskin, Maria Muldaur and Geoff Muldaur from the old Jim Kweskin Jug Band of the 1960s . They set the standard for this of music. That standard included use of some homemade instruments (like a washtub) and off-beat lyrical compositions (some might maintain inane compositions but we will not quibble). They also, in turn worked off the standards set by earlier jug bands like the Cannon Jug Band and the famous Memphis Jug Band. So there are some traditions here.

All of this is by way of saying that the jug band under review, Washboard Slim and the Blue Lights, have some pretty good forbears. Although I do not believe that jug music now, like some people believed in the 1960s, is the wave of the future in alternative music it nevertheless has a pretty good pedigree. And it is fun. That appears to be the case wit this group as well. From 1950’s teen love takes off in a big way with the likes "Tunnel of Love” and “Big Hunk Of Love” to classic jug like “Washboard Wiggles” this is just for fun. Kweskin and his crew set the modern standard but these folks know the milieu. Nice.

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Three- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Jim Kweskin&The Jug Band

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band in performance. Listen for that old kazoo.

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 Three: Phil Ochs on “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, Richard &Mimi Farina on “Pack Up Your Sorrows”, John Hammond on “Drop Down Mama”, Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”, John Denver on “Bells Of Rhymney”, Gordon Lightfoot on "Early Morning Rain”, Eric Andersen on “Thirsty Boots”, Tim Hardin on “Reason To Believe”, Richie Havens on “Just Like A Woman”, Judy Collins on “Suzanne”, Tim Buckley on “Once I Was”, Tom Rush on “The Circle Game”, Taj Mahal on “Candy Man”, Loudon Wainwright III on “School Days”and Arlo Guthrie on “The Motorcycle Song”


Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band on “Rag Mama”. Jim Kweskin, Geoff Muldaur and Maria Muldaur, three of the leading lights of this seminal 1960s jug band are still, mainly separately, performing. I have spilled plenty of ink on their later works so I need not spend much time here on that. “Rag Mama” was their anthem (and displayed the full range of possibilities of jug music- who would have thought that a kid’s kazoo could make so much fun music, right?). A note: in the booklet there is a reference to a belief that if it had not been for the British invasion led by the Beatles taking all of the air out of the then popular music world that jug music was going to be the next big wave. Hey, I like jug music as well as the next guy or gal but I think somebody was smoking “something” on making that comment.


Rag Mama rag

I can't believe its true
Rag Mama rag
What did you do
I go on up to the railroad track
Let the 4:19 scratch my back
Sag Mama sag
What's come over you
Rag Mama rag
I'm pullin out your gag
Gonna turn you loose
Like an old caboose
Got a tail I need to drag

I ask about your turtle
And you ask about the weather
I can't jump the hurdle
And we can't get together
We could be relaxin'
In my sleepin' bag
But all you want to do for me Mama is
Rag Mama rag
There's no where to go
Rag mama rag
Come on resin up the bow

Rag Mama rag
Where do you run
Rag Mama rag
Bring your skinny little body back home
It's dog it dog
Cat eat mouse
You can rag Mama rag
All over my house

Hail stones beatin' on the roof
The bourbon is hundred proof
It's you and me and the telephone
Our destiny is quite well known
We don't need to sit and brag
All we gotta do is rag Mama rag Mama rag

Rag Mama rag
Where do you roam
Rag Mama rag
Bring your skinny little body back home

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- *In The Beginning Was...The Jug- The Music of Jim Kweskin And The Jug Band- An Encore

CD Review

“Garden Of Joy” (1967), “America”(1971), Jim Kweskin and various musicians, two CD set, Warner Brothers, 2006

There is something of a joke on the folk rock circuit that Bob Dylan is on a never-ending tour. (Probably fairly close to the truth these days.) Apparently, in my reviews of the folk figures of the 1960s, I too am on never-ending tour. So be it. Today I go back to the now familiar question of why various male folk artists didn’t rise to Dylan’s iconic status. Except here on the subject of this review, Jim Kweskin of Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band fame (that also included two performers, ex-marrieds Geoff and Maria Muldaur, that I have spilled plenty of ink on in this space as well), I will not belabor the point for he simply made a choice to stay with his day job.

Except now some forty plus years later one Jim Kweskin has been making something of a revival in the Boston area,sometimes along with the afore-mentioned Geoff Muldaur. I recently attended a performance by the pair at a locally famous folk club (aka coffee house, for the nostalgically-inclined). Do these guys still have it? Oh, yes. Jim is still finger-picking with the best of them. Geoff (off a recent CD done with the Texas Sheiks) still is in good voice. Plus, a big plus, they are working the dust off the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music in their sets. Wow! Thus, I felt duty-bound to pick up the two CD set under review.

The set includes one old Jug Band album, including the classic Clifford Hayes jug number, “Garden Of Joy”, a nice monologue by the late Jug Band member (and jug aficionado) Fritz Richmond, and Maria on Lead Belly’s “When I Was A Cowboy.” This, my friends, is history. The second CD is a little later after the original Jug Band members went their separate ways. Here we have covers of Mance Lipscomb’s classic “Sugar Babe”, The Memphis Jug Band’s “Stealin’”, and Merle Travis’ “Dark As A Dungeon” to feast on. The question still remains open though, one that I have posed before-Jim, Geoff and Maria are still performing, and performing well in their respective venues. Therefore…well, you know the question, right?

Happy Birthday Jim Kweskin-The Max Daddy Of Jug- On Memphis Minnie's Birthday-In The Beginning There Was……Jug- Songstress Maria Muldaur Goes Back Home

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Maria Muldaur performing with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band back in the days.

CD Review

Maria Muldaur And Her Garden Of Joy, Maria Muldaur and the Garden of Joy Jug Band, Stony Plain, 2009

The last time that I featured the femme fatale blues torch singer reincarnate Maria Muldaur (at least that is the way that she, successfully, projected herself in her recent blues revival projects) was in a review of her 2007 CD tribute to the great singers of the 1920s and 1930s, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Sippy Wallace and the like. I might add that I raved on and on about the value of her project, the worthiness of the singers honored and her own place in the blues pantheon. Of course, for those in the know about the roots of the folk revival of the 1960s at least, the name Maria Muldaur is forever associated with another closely-related branch of roots music-the jug band. Maria was the very fetching female vocalist for the old time revivalist Jim Kweskin Jug Band (and an earlier effort in her home town, New York City, by John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful fame, The Even Dozen Jug Band).

Well, hold the presses please, because the red hot blues mama has come back home in her latest project, the CD under review, “Maria Muldaur And Her Garden Of Joy”. And if Maria was kind of thrown in the background somewhat in those days by the strong presence of Jim Kweskin and that of her ex-husband Geoff Muldaur she is front and center on this effort. One of the virtues of jug music back in the day was that it was basically zany, funny, send-off kind of music and full of, usually, high-spirited if coded sexual innuendos. This, on occasion, was a welcome break from the heavy political message songs that were de rigueur or the traditional ballads filled with tales of thwarted love, duplicity and murder and mayhem. In this CD Maria brings back the energy and just plain wistfulness of that type of music. And she does it on her terms.

As fate would have it, or rather by a conscious act, I happened to see Maria and her very fine new jug band made up of younger, well, Jim Kweskin jug band-types (along with guest performer, now blues/ragtime guitar virtuoso John Sebastian) in Cambridge (one of her old stomping rounds and an important secondary center of the folk revival in the 1960s). And, like the last time I saw her a couple of years ago when she was that femme fatale blues singer, she did not disappoint. The woman carried the show with the energy of the old days (that you can get an idea of by going on "YouTube" in a click from 1966).

The line between jug music and flat out torch blues sometimes is not that wide and the switch over thus is not that dramatic. At least in Maria's hands. Witness her version of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Richland Woman” which she did jug-style at the concert (she did a more lowdown bluesy version on her “Richland Woman” album). The example on this album that comes to mind is the little known but, currently, very relevant 1929 song “Bank Failure Blues”. Also the classic jug tune “Garden Of Joy” and another one “Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul” (also done blues-style on a previous album of the same name). This is good stuff but begs the question. Jim Kweskin is still performing. Geoff Muldaur is still performing. Geoff and Jim occasionally perform together. Wouldn’t it be a treat if...?

Blues Lyrics - Mississippi John Hurt Richland's Woman Blues

All rights to lyrics included on these pages belong to the artists and authors of the works. All lyrics, photographs, soundclips and other material on this website may only be used for private study, scholarship or research. by Mississippi John Hurt recording of 19 from

Gimme red lipstick and a bright purple rouge
A shingle bob haircut and a shot of good boo'
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' your horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
Come along young man, everything settin' right
My husbands goin' away till next Saturday night
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
Now, I'm raring to go, got red shoes on my feet
My mind is sittin' right for a Tin Lizzie seat
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
The red rooster said, "Cockle-doodle-do-do"
The Richard's' woman said, "Any dude will do"
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
With rosy red garters, pink hose on my feet
Turkey red bloomer, with a rumble seat
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
Every Sunday mornin', church people watch me go
My wings sprouted out, and the preacher told me so
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
Dress skirt cut high, then they cut low
Don't think I'm a sport, keep on watchin' me go
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone __________

Note 1: a woman's haircut with the hair trimmed short from the back of the head to the nape; Note 2: nickname for the Model T Ford automobile (1915), a small inexpensive first time mass- produced early automobile.

On Memphis Monnie's Birthday-The “Kings Of Dinkytown**” - The Music Of Folk’s Spider John Koerner and Sidekicks Dave Ray And Tony Glover

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Spider John Koerner and
Tony Glover performing "Last Lonesome Blues" at , appropriately, the Dinkyfest in 2007.

**Dinkytown refers to the student/hip ghetto, etc. of Minneapolis back in the days (and perhaps today as well). It also seemingly reflects on the geographic range of the Koerner/Ray/Glover ambition.

DVD Review

Blues, Rags& Hollers: The Koerner, Ray& Glover Story,directed by Tony Glover, MVD Visual, 1986

In a review of Spider John Koerner’s CD “Stargeezer” (see review entry accompanying this blog on this date, August 29. 2009) earlier this year I made the following comment that related to a question I was then asking about the fate of various male folk singers from the folk revival of the 1960s:

“Okay, Okay those of you who have been keeping tabs know that I have spend much of the last year, when not doing political commentary or book or movie reviews, reviewing many of the old time folk artists that, along with the blues, were the passion of my youth in the early 1960's. You might also know, if you are keeping tabs, that I have been attempting to answer a question that I have posed elsewhere in this space earlier about the fate or fates of various performers from that period. Spider John Koerner was a lesser known, but important, fixture on the Cambridge/Boston folk scene during that time, as well as later once the hubbub died down and he and a local stalwart, Mr. Bones, carried on the tradition in smaller venues and in front of smaller crowds.”

Well, according to this film documentary by Tony Glover, at various times part of the sporadic musical team of Koerner, Ray and Glover, there was more, much more to the Spider John story that I was aware of. And to the stories of Ray and Glover, as well. That said, it is nevertheless true that Spider John fell off the charts and became more of a regional influence. All of this seemingly by choice and by personal circumstance. That brings up the final point that I would make (other than recommending that if you are interested in the fates of the secondary occupants of the folk revival pantheon to view this very informative, if somewhat eccentric piece). Not everyone was cut out by disposition, drive, personal inclination or personal limitations to be “king of the hill” in the folk revival (or any other endeavor). But, damn they can still make good music and we owe a lot to this trio for preserving it for us.

"Me & My Chauffeur" lyrics by Memphis Minnie

Won't you be my chauffeur
Won't you be my chauffeur
I wants him to drive me
I wants him to drive me downtown
Yes he drives so easy I can't turn him down
But I don't want him
But I don't want him
To be ridin' his girls
To be ridin' his girls around
So I'm gonna steal me a pistol, shoot my chauffeur down
Well I must buy him
Well I must buy him
A brand new V8
A brand new V8 Ford
Then he won't need no passengers, I will be his load
Yes... take it away...
Wanna let my chauffeur
Wanna let my chauffeur
Drive me around the
Drive me around the world
Then he can be my little boy, yes I'll be his girl

When First Unto This Country
Lyrics: Traditional
Music: Traditional

When first unto this country
A stranger I came
I courted a fair maid
And Nancy was her name

I courted her for love
Her love I didn't obtain
Do you think I've any reason
Or right to complain

I rode to see my Nancy
I rode both night and day
I stoled a fine stallion
From Colonel Charles Grey

I rode to see my Nancy
I rode both day and night
I courted fairest Nancy
My own heart's true delight

The sheriff's men they followed
And overtaken me
They carted me away
To the penitentiary

They opened up the door
And then they threw me in
They shaved off my hair
And they cleared off my chin

They beat me and they banged me
And they fed me on dry beans
'Til I wished to my own soul
I'd never been a thief

With my hands stuck in my pockets
And my cap set on so bold
My coat of many colors
Like Joseph's of old

When first unto this country
A stranger I came
I courted a fair maid
And Nancy was her name

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman- The Memphis Jug Band’s “K.C. Moan”

…he hadn’t been to K.C. in six years, he, Jason Albert Moore, in case you are interested ran under the moniker Three River Blackie when he was on that six year road, well, not all of it on the road, the freedom road, but six years if you count that ninety day stretch in the Clay County Jail (no good time, but don’t ask why) and that deuce in Joliet (years, minus the good time, it was to be up to a nickel, okay) for that armed robbery rap he took the fall for by being just a little too slow up by the Loop one night when he needed dough bad, about as bad as a man with a thirst and a jone needed dough, and the coppers nabbed him going over a back alley fence down over in Illinois, Chicago to be precise. Yah, he was heading home just as fast that old Illinois Central and whatever other connections he could make to the Missouri line and on to K.C. got him there. He had gotten a letter from his baby, his sweet Minnie, his sweet brown woman, while he was up and she had a nest waiting for him, waiting for him, no questions asked. Just get home, and get home quick. And as he settled himself down on the flat that he had just hopped (and almost didn’t make, he had lost a step or two since the days when he could back into a flat turning down against theengine with his eyes closed) he started thinking about what drove him out those six years ago.

Yes, part of it was Minnie, of that he had no doubts. Minnie and her wanting ways, wanting to get married, wanting him and them to leave the club circuit (hell, club was too fancy a word most nights, bowling alley, juke joint, barbecue pit, movie theater, somebody’s rent party house, a bus station in the colored section of town, any place that could hold a crowd of more than twenty or so) leave the showboat slow and easy life that he had been practically born to (his Pa had taught him the one- string guitar attached to a post on the cabin he grew up in down in Biloxi when he was five and he never looked back, from one to twelve strings, he could play it all, and had played every venue in the south until the music, the making money music, started drifting west to places like Cairo, Decatur, and Kansas City), wanting him (and maybe her too, she threw that in sometimes like a man throws a dog a bone) to get a steady regular job (doing what, picking cotton, heaving dockside barrels, fetching for Mister somewhere, he asked, he who never even finished sixth grade), and most of all wanting to have his child (and he figuring that child meant a house, a bringing up house, and fixing up house, and cleaning up house, and painting a house and maybe growing tulips or something to give some color). No, he was not interested. Thank you Miss Minnie, thank you a lot, but no thanks.

Part of it though was what happened that night, that night he hightailed it from old K.C. See, he had first met Minnie at Pistol Pete Johnson’s old barrelhouse down in the bottoms a couple of years before (niggertown, to the white folks, okay, or what did some white guy from New York call him one night, thinking he was being respectful, oh yah, nigra, yah nigratown), Pete’s being a big stop on the circuit, where she, K.C. born and bred, was busting forth with some wicked great blues stuff covering Bessie (Me and My Gin, Hustling Dan, Bed Bug Blues, really good stuff),some Ma Rainey, and some gal who just blew into town, Memphis Minnie (doing Minnie’s Girlish Days better than Memphis Minnie because she actually was more girlish). He was then playing with a couple of guys (different guys in different places depending on who was sober enough to make the next stop) who called themselves the Biloxi Sheiks (everybody was using that moniker in those days after the Mississippi Sheiks, made it big, made it big with a record contract so everybody wanted to be a sheik something, sheik of araby, maybe).

They were going nowhere and so, after some cooing and doving with Miss Minnie, he proposed that they work as a team, and they did. And for a couple of years, until Minnie got her wanting habits on, that list he thought about before , they made dough, big dough, big, ha, nigra dough. Then, after about twenty fights about settling down, Minnie just up and quit, left the circuit, and left him flat. He started drinking, drinking high- shelf whiskey and smoking reefer, sweet dream reefer to take the edge off as he went on the road solo. One night, drunk and stoned, in Clarksville down in the Mississippi Delta at Harpoon Harry’s juke joint a guy, a young punk, called him out, said he played like some old pappy grandpa and to move over and die. They stepped out back as was the custom to settle such blood words and he cut that young brother up, cut him up bad. And so, taking nothing except what he had on with him, he fled, fled for his life, fled north, north to Chi town, north and troubles.

As he thought about that time he also realized that part of it was that he wanted to be a drifter, wanted to be a rolling stone. He had had some good times, some bad times, had made some money on Maxwell Street, had lost some, had had some fine women, some fine high yella women, and some as dark as night, and then moved on. He had been his own man, and as that old train started heading its way west, he determined that he wasn’t going to K.C. after all, maybe to Detroit or New York, yah, New York where they would just call him nigra…

Send "K.cc. Moan" Ringtone to your Cell

Well, I thought I had heard that K C when she moan
Thought I heard that K C when she moan
Thought I heard that K C when she moan
Well, she sound like she got a heavy load

Yes and when I get back on the K C road
When I get back on the K C road
When I get back on the K C road
Gonna love my woman like I never loved before

(From: http://www.elyrics.net)
Well I thought I heard that K C whistle moan
Well I thought I heard that K C whistle moan
Well I thought I heard that K C whistle moan
Well she blow like my woman's on board

When I get back on that K C road
When I get back on that K C road
When I get back on that K C road
Gonna love my baby like I never loved before

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Before Bo Diddley Put The Rock In Rock And Roll-Way Before- A CD Review (Of Sorts)

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Memphis Jug Band (with a special guest) performing their classic Kokomo.

CD Review

Before The Blues; The Early American Black Music Scene –Classic Recordings from the 1920s and 1930s, Volume Two, various artists, Yazoo Records, 1996

Recently in reviewing a Masters Of Blues compilation composes of many of the greats from the R&B era like Ruth Brown, Louis Jordan, and Llyod Price, the era just before my generation of ‘68s childhood mid-1950s great rock and roll jail breakout I posed the question of who, or what Bo, Diddley (or your favorite for the honor) listening to before he put the rock in rock and roll. Today I take that same notion and step back one more generation to the great, mostly black, musical influences of the 1920s and 1930s. And pose that same question. Who did Big Joe Turner have his ear turned to when he put the rhythm into R&B.

This Jazz Age, this first serious generation of record buyers and radio listeners, was filled with all kind of wanna-bes searching for that right sound that would carry them to success. Needless to say the music had to reach down to those who could not afford concerts, musical halls or the Paul Whitman Band at the country club. So the music had to reach anyway it could (most interestingly in the primitive instruments, and great sound, of the various jug and sheik bands of the era) those hard-working five and one half sweat- shop workers, those hot Delta sun cotton plantation workers, and the others seeking refuge on a Saturday at the local juke joint, the local barn dance or the local lodge hall rented out for the occasion.

And the music had to touch that religious chord too, because sure as hell come Sunday morning, drunk or sober, there was payment due for Saturday nights brawls, fist fights, deep sea diving, etc. Repent sinner. So the two strands had to mesh, barrelhouse and storefront church. And the selections here from Frank Stokes, Eck Robertson, the Memphis Jug Band. Charley Patton, Blind Willie Johnson give great examples of those two strands. And you can feel that first blush wave forming that would, after World War II, get electrified, get jumped up, and get R&Bed (ouch). Then, of course, comes you know what. And if you don’t just think Bo.

Out In The Mist Of Time Of The American Blues Night-“Before The Blues-Volume 2”-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Memphis Jug Band performing their old-time blues classic Harry Smith Anthology-worthy, K.C. Moan.

CD Review (The basic points made in this review have been used to review the other two volumes in this three volume set)

Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Classic Recordings From The 1920s and 1930s, Volume 2, Yazoo Records, 1996

Out of the back of my 1960s teenage bedroom the radio was blaring out a
midnight blues version of Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years complete with harmonica-devouring accompaniment by Wolf himself (a fact, the almost eating part, not visually known to me until much later when I viewed his epic work via YouTube) on the American Blues Hour coming over the airways from sweet home Chicago (sweet home of the modern electric blues that is). Earlier in the program Muddy Waters, prince regent of the electric blues just then, had held forth with his band (made up then, and at various other times, with sidemen like Otis Spann and Junior Wells who would go on to their own blues hall of fame-like careers), with a sizzling version of Mannish Child. Ya, those were the primo hell-bent devil’s music blues days. No question.

Well not quite no question for that show, or for this review. The show had started out with a three card Monte of Dupree’s Blues, first by Lightnin’ Hopkins on electric, Brownie McGhee on acoustic and Willie Walker doing an a cappella version (which is included in this compilation) from out of the mist of blues times, or the depths of the American music night. At least of the stuff that has been recorded. That is important because prior to radio this material was handed down mostly through the oral traditions. That tradition got reflected in the Dupree’s Blues example because although the basic melody and theme were the same throughout the narratives were somewhat different. And that too reflects the blues tradition, and before the blues, the roots of the blues which is what this compilation (and two additional volumes) concentrates on.

The blues, for the most part, was a quintessential black music form as it developed out of the scorched dry plantation fields of the post- Civil War Jim Crow South, out of the moans and groans of the black church Sunday and out of the hard drinking, hard fighting, hard loving, hard partying Saturday night acoustic music (had to, no electricity) night before sobering up for those Sunday church groans. And while it occasionally moved to a respectable dance hall or movie house concert hall (segregated, no questions asked) before the age of radio that is where it developed kind of helter-skelter. This Before The Blues volume 2 compilation reflects all of those trends from the Memphis Jug Band’s K.C. Moan to Blue Lemon Jefferson’s Jack O’Diamond Blues To Golden Harris’ I Lead A Christian Life. So the next time you hear the Stones’ covering Wolf’s Little Red Rooster or Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move you know where it came from.

*In Folklorist Harry Smith’s House-"Fatal Flower Garden" — Nelstone's Hawaiians (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.


Remembering the Old Songs:

The Fatal Flower Garden

by Lyle Lofgren

(Originally published: Inside Bluegrass, December 1997)

Now that we're having our yearly lesson about Peace On Earth And Good Will To Men, here's a little test: do you believe that the events described in this song ever happened? If you do, you have lots of company. After all, stories like these are why we warn our children not to get into cars with strangers or to accept invitations to visit fatal flower gardens. British versions of this ballad give lots of specifics, allowing scholars (see Child #155) to find the event in written records. The Annals Of Waverly for the year 1255 give the whole story: Hugh, of Lincoln, age nine, is enticed into a Jew's garden, after which he's tortured and crucified to mock Christians (a particularly stupid act in a Christian country like England). They try to hide the body (which makes no sense if it's a mocking act), but it can't be discarded. When buried or thrown in the river, it miraculously reappears. It's thrown in a well, but it floats, and, when brought up, a blind woman touches it and regains her sight. After some torture, the Jews confess, resulting in their execution, along with that of dozens of other (mostly wealthy) Jews throughout England.

Not satisfied with such specifics, Child follows the story back to at least 419 C.E. in Syria, and he cites examples from all the European countries. The stories are usually specific as to the boy's name and age, giving location and date. A similar story set in Spain was the inspiration for Ferdinand and Isabella's creation of the Spanish Inquisition. Given the history of this past sad century, you would not be surprised to find that the story has wide currency in Germany, Poland, and Russia.

The best way to learn this song is to buy a copy of Smithsonian-Folkways reissue of the monumental Folkways Anthology Of American Folk Music. Besides eighty-three other fabulous pieces, you'll get this version performed by a southern Alabama duet called Nelstone's Hawaiians. The tune seems to ask for modern (for the 1920s) techniques, like the smooth singing harmony and slide Hawaiian (Dobro) guitar (tuned DGBGBD) used on the recording. I like to add the lush chords of an autoharp, but ordinary guitars work fine, also.

When our children were pre-teens, we'd sing them songs on long drives to alleviate boredom. They repeatedly requested this one. I'm not sure why - maybe it was the ritual nature of the boy's instructions at the end, or maybe it was the finger rings. We were careful to point out that it was fiction, and they have not grown up to be Gypsyphobics. Still, this is a difficult song, because we find it so easy to believe that, as Sartre put it, "Evil is the other." Instilling fear of evil therefore involves fear of the outsider. But fear is as corrosive as hate, and although we warn our children about strangers, family members commit almost all child murders. How do you warn about that?




Complete Lyrics:
It rained, it poured, it rained so hard,
It rained so hard all day,
That all the boys in our school
Came out to toss and play.

They tossed a ball again so high,
Then again, so low;
They tossed it into a flower garden
Where no-one was allowed to go.

Up stepped a gypsy lady,
All dressed in yellow and green;
"Come in, come in, my pretty little boy,
And get your ball again."

"I can't come in, I shan't come in
Without my playmates all;
I'll go to my father and tell him about it,
That'll cause tears to fall."

She first showed him an apple seed,
Then again gold rings,
Then she showed him a diamond,
That enticed him in.

She took him by his lily-white hand,
She led him through the hall;
She put him in an upper room,
Where no-one could hear him call.

"Oh, take these finger rings off my finger,
Smoke them with your breath;
If any of my friends should call for me,
Tell them that I'm at rest."

"Bury the bible at my head,
A testament at my feet;
If my dear mother should call for me,
Tell her that I'm asleep."

"Bury the bible at my feet,
A testament at my head;
If my dear father should call for me,
Tell him that I am dead."


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Bibliography
This is one of the most popular of the old ballads. There are fully 21 texts in the Child collection, where it is piece #155. Bronson reports the amazing total of 66 tunes. It has been reported throughout England, in parts of Scotland, in Ireland, in the Canadian Maritimes, and in all parts of the U.S. east of the Mississippi (though rarely if ever west of it). American versions are reported by, among others, Randolph (#25), Eddy (#20), Flanders/Olney, (pp. 30-32, Little Harry Huston), McNeil (pp. 147-149, Sonny Hugh), and Sharp (assorted versions).

We might add that the account in the Annals of Waverly is almost universally held to be unhistorical. This tale probably does not arise from actual events, but from fear of outsiders. For example, in many versions the child-stealer is a Gypsy -- but there is not one verified instance of child-stealing by Gypsies.