This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Showing posts with label the carter family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the carter family. Show all posts
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.
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)
In The Time Of The Second Mountain
Music Revival- A Song-catcher Classic Song- "Come All Ye Fair And Tender
Ladies"-Maybelle Carter-Style
By Alex Radley
Being very new here, brought in the
past few months by Greg Green on the recommendation of his Editorial Board, I
have nothing to say about the internal wrangling that has roiled this shop over
the past several month even after the departure of the previous site manager. I
am concerned though at a personal level about the talk, rumor I guess you would
call it, ever since Phil Larkin, an older writer here and sort of a funny guy,
started talking about purges and changes of direction which has a lot of
writers and not just the older ones concerned about what and who will stay and
what and who will go. I have heard from Bart Webber, a mainstay of this site
from what some guys have told me, there are plans afoot to shut down, or deeply
scale back the amount of reviews and reminiscences about the folk scene in the
1960s and the long string of such music prior to that which those folk
aficionados gathered up and promoted.
This mountain music which certainly is
folk music in an almost literal sense is the music of my grandfather who grew
up down in the hills and hollows of Appalachia and attended those Saturday
night fiddle, mandolin, mountain harp, red barn dances when he was young which
he told me about when I was young. One of the junior editors here who shall
remain nameless because as they say on all disclaimers he is not authorized to
talk about it but who has been helpful on a couple of other reviews kind of
off-handedly told me that this review might very well be the last, or close to
the last time, mountain music gets anything but short shrift notice in passing
on this site. Damn.
A YouTube film clip of a classic Song-Catcher-type
song from deep in the mountains, Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies.
According to my sources Cecil Sharpe (a British musicologist in the manner of
Francis Child with his ballads back in 1850s Cambridge hanging out with
Longfellow and the Brattle Street crowd, Charles Seeger father of Pete Seeger a
seminal force in folk music in his own right and key link to the folk music
passing on of the 1960s my grandfather keeps telling me about when I go visit
him in the nursing home, and the Lomaxes, father and son who whatever the son
did to injure the career of a British folksinger of some note with his
disregard for her feelings when they were companions did yeoman’s work
collecting prison songs, Saturday night red barn hills and hollows song and a
lot more)"discovered" the song in 1916 in Kentucky.
Of course my first connection to the
song had nothing to do with the mountains, or mountain origins, or so I though
at the time but was heard the first time long ago in my grandfather in his ill-spent
1960s youth (that expression his not mine) listening to a late Sunday night
folk radio show on WBZ in Boston hosted by Dick Summer (who is now featured on
the Tom Rush documentary No Regrets about Tom’s life in the early 1960s
Boston folk scene that my grandfather has also gone on and on about) and
hearing the late gravelly-voiced folksinger Dave Van Ronk like some latter-day
Jehovah doing his version of the song. Quite a bit different from the Maybelle
Carter effort here. I'll say.
[By the way that “or so I thought”
about mountain music later turned out to be not quite true. My grandfather originally
from coal country down in Prestonsburg, Kentucky out by the hills and hollows
(I refuse to write “hollas” which is the way grandfather pronounces it and from
him it sounds right) and my grandmother left Carville for a time to go back to
his growing up home to see if they could make a go of it there after World War
II. They could not but while they were there my father was conceived and being
carried in my grandmothers’ womb so it turned out the damn stuff was in my DNA
going back some distance. Go figure, right.]
COME ALL YE FAIR AND TENDER LADIES
(A.P. Carter)
The Carter Family - 1932
Come all ye fair and tender ladies
Take warning how you court young men
They're like a bright star on a cloudy
morning
They will first appear and then they're
gone
They'll tell to you some loving story
To make you think that they love you
true
Straightway they'll go and court some
other
Oh that's the love that they have for
you
Do you remember our days of courting
When your head lay upon my breast
You could make me believe with the
falling of your arm
That the sun rose in the West
I wish I were some little sparrow
And I had wings and I could fly
I would fly away to my false true lover
And while he'll talk I would sit and
cry
But I am not some little sparrow
I have no wings nor can I fly
So I'll sit down here in grief and
sorrow
And try to pass my troubles by
I wish I had known before I courted
That love had been so hard to gain
I'd of locked my heart in a box of
golden
And fastened it down with a silver
chain
Young men never cast your eye on beauty
For beauty is a thing that will decay
For the prettiest flowers that grow in
the garden
How soon they'll wither, will wither
and fade away
Will The Circle Be Unbroken-The Music
OF The Carter Family (First Generation)
By Sam Lowell
I am not enjoying my so-called retirement from the day to day
operation of the film review section of
this site. For many years I was at first film critic, small letters, and
later when the then site manager Allan Jackson brought in some younger writers
Senior Film Critic, capital letters, in the days when he got the bright notion
that we needed a heriarchy here between the older writers and the younger
writers and such designations did the trick. Well Allan found out to his later
regret that such silly formal divisions and as well only permitting the younger
writers to essentially have our leavings, leaving which included and oversized
amount of material reflecting on the growing up times of the older writers, the
1960s, that frankly the younger writers could give a f- - k, pardon my English,
about was part of his undoing. Brought a full-scale rebellion which eventually
led to his downfall.
There are persistant rumors that Allan did not retire as is
the formal reason given for his no longer running the show here but that he was
purged, was unceremoniously driven into exile in Utah where he is hustling the Mormons
for a by-line in some third-rate newspaper hard as that is to believe of guy
who mocked the hell out of Mitt Romney when he was running for President in 2012
what with his five wives great-grardfather and white underwear. As a long time
friend of Allan’s I had thought the former reason, that retirement stuff, rather suspicous since no way would Allan have
retired on his own volition. This place was his baby. Of course as the one
older writer who sided with what are now around the office called the “Young
Turks” I am concerned that these victorious writers are not going to leave well
enough alone and are ready according to another strong rumor to purge the lot
of older writers.
I have no regrets, except the probable loss of a friend of
fifty years standing if it proves that he is not out in hell-hole Utah but
holed up somewhere near-by licking his wounds, about casting that decisive vote
agaisnt him since the site really was turning into a lonely-hearts club for
nostagic generation of ’68 veterans. Especially last year when Allan went crazy early on about the 50th
anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 which formed a number of us from the
old growing up neighborhood’s baptism of fire into that newer world we thought
we were getting caught up in.
Allan got in such a frenzy about the matter that say you
wanted to submit an article about the 1940s classic private detective Dashiell
Hammett novel-inspired movie The Maltese
Falcon you had to connect the dots somehow so that that San Francisco era of
the film somehow linked up to the Summer of Love which was also centered in
Frisco town. He had a big red-pencil out eagle-eyed looking for anything which
he could “edit” toward that goal. (By the way to give a graphic example of how
tilted Allan’s mind had become about linkage none of the younegr writers who
gave it a try could make a conenction between the two, none. It took wily Phil
Larkin to do the deed. The link? Miles Archer, one of the detective on the case,
was killed, was murdered on Post Street and that street is located not far from
the Fillimore where plenty of ‘acid rock” was performed and also near the epicenter
of the whole thing, the Haight-Ashbury section of town. He went on to speculate
about whether Sam Spade would have gotten caught in the Summer of Love or would
he have hired himself out to search for missing kids for their distraught parents.
Allan was delighted.)
The younger writers could have given a f - - k about that
distant time but he made it a litmus test. I assumed that the frenzy would only
get worse as the various 50th anniversaries, good and bad, for 1968
in 2018 came up. He had to go.
It did not help personally, although I have kept pretty quiet
about it and did not let it get used for ammunition in the fierce internal
fight which raged throughout most of the latter part of 2017, that due to my
persistant nagging about the erroneous direction the site was taking that I was
“forced” to retire from the day to day operations once he brought Sandy Salmon
over from the American Film Gazette
(as he did with current site manager Greg Green later in the year). He gave me
so-called emertitus status and told me that I could now write whatever I wanted
and submit whenever I wanted. And then crabbed every time I wanted to write
about something not Summer of Love-related or not film related. So the short
reminscence piece below is something that I had done a draft on, got
red-penciled to death by Allan and threw in a desk drawer until recently I
asked Greg Green about resurrecting the damn thing. In a flick he sure go to
it. Yeah, although I am worried about purge talk both for Allan’s sake and the rest
of us older writers, the old bastard had to go.
**********
You know it took a long time for me to
figure out why I was drawn, seemingly out of nowhere, to the mountain music
most famously brought to public, Northern public, attention by the likes of the
Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, and the folklorists the Seegers and the Lomaxes
who brought a ton of this stuff to the waiting arms of 1960s kids who were
looking for “roots” whatever that might mean to any particular kid. Kids who would
pay serious college cheap date money to see some of the survivors like Buell
Ezell or Hobart Smith go through their paces.
As a kid I could not abide it but later
on I figured that was because I was so embroiled in the uprising jail-break
music of my generation, rock and roll, that anything else faded, faded badly by
comparison. Later in high school and after that in college when I too joined
the cheap date night crowd in the days when I hung around Harvard Square and would
pursue girls, young women, only if they were willing to but into my cheap date
routine I would let something like Gold Watch And Chain register a bit,
registering a bit. That then meaning that I would find myself occasionally idly
humming such a tune. But again more urban, more protest-oriented folk music was
what caught my attention more when the folk minute was at high tide in the
early 1960s.
Then one day not all that many years
ago as part of a final reconciliation with my family, going back to my own
roots, making peace with my old growing up neighborhood, I started asking many
questions of family, old school mates and old friends like Phil Larkin and Bart
Webber who have written in this space as well about how things turned so sour
back when I was young. More importantly asking questions that had stirred in my
mind for a long time and formed part of the reason that I went for
reconciliation. To find out what my roots were while somebody was around to
explain the days before I could rightly remember the early days. And in that
process I finally, finally figured out why the Carter Family and others began
to “speak” to me.
The thing was simplicity itself. See my
father hailed from Kentucky, Hazard, Kentucky long noted in song and legend as
hard coal country. (The L&M Doesn’t
Stop Here Anymore, Going Back To Harlan)When World War II came along he
left to join the Marines to get the hell out of there. During his tour of duty
he was stationed for a short while at the Portsmouth Naval Base and during that
stay attended a USO dance held in Portland where he met my mother. Needless to
say he stayed in the North, for better or worse, working the mills in Olde Saco
until they closed or headed south for cheaper labor and then worked at whatever
jobs he could find. All during my childhood though along with that popular
music that got many mothers and fathers through the war mountain music,
although I would not have called it that then filtered in the background on the
family living room record player.
But here is the real “discovery,” a
discovery that could only be disclosed by my parents. Early on in their
marriage they had tried to go back to Hazard to see if they could make a go of
it there. This was after my older brother Prescott was born and while my mother
was carrying me. Apparently they stayed for several months before they left to
go back to Olde Saco before I was born since I was born in Portland General Hospital.
So see that damn mountain was in my DNA, was just harking to me when I got the
bug. Funny, isn’t
it.
For The Late Rosalie Sorrels--In Pete Seeger’s House- The Real “Walk The Line” Couple, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash
DVD Review
Rainbow Quest, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Roscoe Holcomb, Jean Redpath, Shanachie, 2005 In a year that has featured various 90th birthday celebrations it is very appropriate to review some of the 1960’s television work of Pete Seeger, one of the premier folk anthologists, singers, transmitters of the tradition and “keeper” of the folk flame. This DVD is a “must see” for anyone who is interested in the history of the folk revival of the 1960’s, the earnest, folksy style of Pete Seeger or the work of the also tradition-oriented , although that fact was previously unknown to me, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash (she of the famous Carter Family tribe. How is that for traditional bloodlines?). This is not only a musical treat seeing the real subjects of the hit movie of a few years ago, “Walk The Line” that got me interested, at least somewhat, in Johnny Cash’s music but filled with information about the Carter Family that I have been interested in for a long time. Pete, by the way, couldn’t be more pleased in working with this pair and they regale us with some old Carter Family songs like “Worried Man Blues”. Also included on this DVD is a performance by the legendary Kentucky mountain music man Roscoe Holcombe 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. Pete wears his “world music” hat in this segment as well as he also brings in Scottish folksinger Jean Redpath in to link up the music of the Scotch-Irish immigrant Kentucky hills and the old country. A nice folk history moment. This DVD contains some very interesting and, perhaps, rare television film footage from two of Pete Seeger shows, packaged in one DVD, entitled “Rainbow Quest” (the whole series consists of six DVDs). Each show is introduced (and ends, as well) by Pete singing his old classic “If I Had A Golden Threat” and then he proceeds to introduce, play guitar and banjo and sing along with the above-mentioned artists. One final note: This is a piece of folk history. Pete Seeger is a folk legend. However, the production values here are a bit primitive and low budget. Moreover, for all his stature as a leading member of the folk pantheon Pete was far from the ideal host. His halting speaking style and almost bashful manner did not draw his guests out. Let’s just put it this way the production concept used then would embarrass a high school television production class today. But, Pete, thanks for the history lesson.
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.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Hazel Dickens And Alice Gerrard.
CD Review
Hazel And Alice, Hazel Dickens And Alice Gerrard, Rounder , 1991
Recently I have been "running the table" on the mountain music genre. From the pioneer work of the venerable Carter Family through to Ralph Stanley and on to the `revival' brought forth in the early part of this decade by such movies as "Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Songcatcher" I have paid more than passing tribute to this quintessential American musical form, complete with fiddle, mandolin and lonely Saturday nights out in the hills and hollows of Appalachia and other rural environs. I have, thus, pretty much exhausted the milieu, right? Wrong. No homage to the modern mountain music scene can be complete with out paying tribute to the work of singer/songwriter Hazel Dickens (and at times musical companion Alice Gerrard, among others).
There was time when, if one was given a choice, the name Hazel Dickens would be the first to come up when naming the most well known voice of the modern mountain music tradition. Her voice spoke of the hardships of the rural life, the trials and tribulations of trying to eke out an existence on some hard scrabble rocky farmland or, more likely, in the coals mines or textiles factories that dominated that landscape for much of the second half of the 20th century. That was the pure, almost primordial voice that spoke of the sorrows of hill life, but also the joys of coming to terms with a very personal (and, apparently) angry god by way of singing away those working women blues, and you can add in a few tunes for those hard-bitten farmers and coals miners as well.
So, needless to say, this little CD is filled with original work and covers on just those subjects mentioned above. From a cover of Utah Phillip's "Rolling Hills Of West Virginia" to the Carter Family's "Hello Stranger' and Sweetest Gift" this is what mountain music is like at the top. Listen and see if you agree.
In Honor Of The Late Ralph Stanley- Clinch Mountain Sweethearts, Indeed!- Ralph Stanley And Friends
A YouTube's Film Clip Of Ralph Stanley Doing "Oh Death".
CD Review
Clinch Mountain Sweethearts, Ralph Stanley and Friends, Rebel Records, 2001
In a recent DVD review of the now mountain music movie classic, George Clooney's "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", I mentioned in passing the name of the artist under review here, Ralph Stanley. I also noted that this grand master of mountain music as it derived from The Carter Family strain was eminently worthy of a separate review on his own merits. I make amends here. I think that this settles all debts by all parties.
That said, the following excerpt from that above-mentioned review can be used here to set the tone for a look at Ralph Stanley's work here:
"Sometimes a revival of a musical form, like the "talking blues", that highlighted the urban folk revival of the early 1960's is driven by a social need. In that case it was to provide a format for the "glad tidings" that a new political and social movement was a-bornin'. In the case of the revival several years ago of what is called "mountain music" it was the films "The Song Catcher" and, more importantly, the very popular movie starring George Clooney " O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The CD under review is a compilation of music from that movie, a not unnatural tie-in in the modern entertainment business. The movie deserves a separate review, however, this CD can stand on its own as a very nice cross section of "mountain music", some familiar most not so.
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."
After that introduction it would seem hardly necessary to do more than list the outstanding tracks on this CD. Except one thing. Ralph has gathered around his "good old boy" self a virtual who's who of female country singers, female folk singers, female folk rock singers, female rock folk singers and ..., well you get the drift. Most of the names here have popped up in other reviews, or will do so in the future. Start with my "Internet Sweetheart", Iris Dement on "Ridin' The Midnight Train" and "Trust Each Other". Folk legend Joan Baez on "Weeping Willow". Maria Muldaur, early on from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and now a "blues mama" extraordinaire in her own right, on "This Memory Of Yours". Melba Montgomery on the classic country song " You Win Again". Lucinda Williams on "Farther Along". And last but not least Gillian Welch on the Stanley national anthem "Oh Death". Did I kid you? This as an All-Star A-list (excepting only Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt). How did the old coot do it? Enjoy.
Ralph Stanley — Daddy's Wildwood Flower lyrics
INSTRUMENTAL INTRO
Mama was his Wildwood Flower, my Daddy used to say, And to prove to her he loved her, he'd play it every day. Mom would look at him and smile, she'd say, "God bless my man, I don't regret one single time that I gave him my hand."
REFRAIN The Wildwood Flower (The Wildwood Flower) Was his favorite song, And when he played for Mama, Her house became a home.
INSTRUMENTAL BREAK
Mom took sick and passed away, this was his darkest hour. He came home that very day and he played the Wildwood Flower. Time went by and he grew old, he'd sit and play for hours, Mem'ries of Mom on his old guitar, he'd play the Wildwood Flower.
REFRAIN
INSTRUMENTAL BREAK
One night, as I walked by his house, I though I heard his song. I heard Mama talkin', but Mom had long been gone. I looked through the window and saw God's mighty power, There sat Mom with Daddy, he was playin' the Wildwood Flower.
REFRAIN
INSTRUMENTAL BREAK
As he grew old, he could play no more, and his mind began to fail. We'd often find him in the field, he seemed so old and frail. One day, we couldn't find him, and after many days, Found him lyin' with the wildwood flowers, up on Mama's grave.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Iris Dement Doing "Pretty Saro" in the film "Songcatcher".
CD/DVD Reviews
This review is being used to comment on both the soundtrack CD and movie DVD.
CD- Songcatcher, various artists, Vanguard Records, 2001
DVD-Songcatcher,2001
In a recent CD review of the music from the now mountain music movie classic, George Clooney’s “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”, (See archives, July 7, 2009) I mentioned in passing that the movie from which the CD under review is taken was also a contributing factor to the revival of interest in the mountain music genre. I also noted there that the CD and film were worthy of a separate review of their own. I make amends here and I think that this settles all debts.
That said, the following excerpt from that above-mentioned review can be used here to set the tone for a look at this “Songcatcher” (and a couple of words on the movie, as postscript) here:
“Sometimes a revival of a musical form, like the "talking blues", that highlighted the urban folk revival of the early 1960's is driven by a social need. In that case it was to provide a format for the "glad tidings" that a new political and social movement was a-bornin'. In the case of the revival several years ago of what is called "mountain music" it was the films "The Song Catcher" and, more importantly, the very popular movie starring George Clooney, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. The CD under review is a compilation of music from that movie, a not unnatural tie-in in the modern entertainment business. The movie deserves a separate review, however, this CD can stand on its own as a very nice cross section of "mountain music", some familiar most not so.
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.”
With that in mind there only remains the need to highlight some of the better efforts here. For starters, apparently, I knew the work of Iris Dement long before I consciously knew her work. I have mentioned in reviews of her work that I had become enamored of her music through her rendition of “Jimmy Rodgers Going Home” on a Greg Brown (now her husband) tribute CD. From the copyright date here (and on Ralph Stanley’s “Clinch Mountain Sweethearts” where she also does a couple of tracks) that is now incorrect. What is not wrong is that her lyrics and vocal range have led me to dub her my “Internet Sweetheart” (Sorry, Greg). And she does not fail here on the traditional “Pretty Saro”. Needless to say no country music/folk music/ folk rock music presentation of any kind is complete these days without a contribution form Emmylou Harris. Here she does a split version of the traditional Child Ballad “Barbara Allen”. Of course, when one talks of mountain music in its 20th century incarnation then the name The Carter Family is front and center. Thus, naturally, one of the representatives from that extended clan, Roseanne Cash, is a welcome addition here doing the old traditional “Fair And Tender Ladies” (a version of which that I first heard way back in the early 1960’s done by Dave Van Ronk). Finally, of necessity again, no “hard” mountain music themed production can be complete without a piece from Hazel Dickens who, as a woman of those mountains, has probably done more to popularize this art form than anyone else. So listen up to a genuine piece of Americana.
Note: Although I am mainly interested in the ‘Songcatcher” film for its soundtrack the movie itself is worth seeing. The plot line revolves around an English woman’s search for authentic American music from the mountains (naturally enough as much of the music crossed over from the British Isles). Sound familiar? Along the way she learns, perhaps more than she wants to know, about this milieu as she collects her music. Naturally, in such a commercial effort there s a little love interest thrown in with a real live mountain man musician wary of “city ways” from his own earlier experiences. Other themes touched upon, although in some cases obliquely, are the isolation of rural life, that just- mentioned conflict between rural and city values, religious fundamentalism and the, seemingly obligatory, nod to same sex issues (here, in a dramatically compelling way, lesbianism and the local reaction to it) that feature in many modern movies. Put the music and those themes together and you have a passable couple of hours. If you have to choose though, get the CD.
"Pretty Saro"
When I first come to this country in Eighteen and Forty-nine I saw many fair lovers but I never saw mine I viewed it all around me, saw I was quite alone and me a poor stranger and a long way from home
Well, my true love she won't have me and it's this I understand For she wants some free holder and I have no land I couldn't maintain her on silver and gold but all of the other fine things that my love's house could hold
Fair the well to ol' mother, fair the well to my father too I'm going for to ramble this wide world all through And when I get weary, I'll sit down and cry and think of my Saro, pretty Saro, my bride
Well, I wished I was a turtle dove Had wings and could fly Far away to my lover's lodgings Tonight I'd drawn the line And there in her lilywhite arms I'd lay there all night and watch through them little wind'ers for the dawning of day
The Ballad of Barbara Allen
Was in the merry month of May When green buds all were swelling, Sweet William on his death bed lay For love of Barbara Allen.
All in the merry month of May When green buds all were swelling, Sweet William on his death bed lay For love of Barbara Allen. He sent his servant to the town To the place where she was dwelling, Said you must come, to my master dear If your name be Barbara Allen.
He sent his servant to the town A place where she did dwell in, Said master dear, has sent me here If your name be Barbara Allen. So slowly, slowly she got up And slowly she drew nigh him, And the only words to him did say Young man I think you're dying.
Then slowly, slowly she got up And slowly she went to him, And all she said, when there she came Young man I think you're dying. He turned his face unto the wall When we were in the tavern, Good-bye, good-bye, to my friends all Be good to Barbara Allen.
Don't you remember the other night And death was in him welling, You drank a toast to the ladies there And slighted Barbara Allen. When he was dead and laid in grave She heard the death bells melling And every stroke to her did say Hard hearted Barbara Allen.
He turned his face unto the wall He turned his back upon her, Adieu, adieu, to all my friends And be kind, be kind, to Barbara Allen. Oh mother, oh mother go dig my grave Make it both long and narrow, Sweet William died of love for me And I will die of sorrow.
As she was wandering by the fields She heard the death bells melling And every note did seem to say Hard hearted Barbara Allen. And father, oh father, go dig my grave Make it both long and narrow, Sweet William died on yesterday And I will die tomorrow.
The more it tolled the more she grieved She bursted out a crying, Oh pick me up and carry me home I feel that I am dying. Barbara Allen was buried in the old churchyard Sweet William was buried beside her, Out of sweet William's heart, there grew a rose From Barbara's a green briar.
They buried Willy in the old churchyard And Barbara in the new one, And from Willy's grave, there grew a rose Out of Barbara Allen's a briar. They grew and grew in the old churchyard Till they could grow no higher At the end they formed, a true lover's knot And the rose grew round the briar.
Fair and Tender Ladies
Come all ye fair and tender ladies Take warning how you court young men They're like a star on a summer morning They first appear and then they're gone
They'll tell to you some lovin' story And make you think they love you well Then away they'll go and court some other And leave you there in grief to dwell
If I had known before I courted That love had been so hard to win I'd locked my heart with the keys of golden And pinned it down with a silver pin
I wish I was a little sparrow And I had wings to fly so high I'd fly away to my false true lover And when he'd ask I would deny
But I am not a little sparrow, I have no wings, neither can I fly So I'll sit down to weep in sorrow, And try to pass my troubles on by
Love is handsome, love is charming And love is pretty while it's new But love grows cold as love grows older And fades away like morning dew
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the late Hazel Dickens performing Hills Of Home.
CD Review
It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song, Hazel Dickens, Rounder Records, 1987
Kenny Jackman heard the late Hazel Dickens (d. 2011) for the very first time on her CD album It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song some years back when he was in thrall to mountain music after being hit hard by Reese Witherspoon’s role as June Carter in the film Walk The Line. At that time he was into all things Carter Family unto the nth generation. A friend, a Vermont mountain boy friend, hipped him to Hazel during his frenzy and he picked up the CD second-hand in Harvard Square. Hazel’s You’ll Get No More Of Me, A Few Old Memories and the classic Hills of Home knocked him out. The latter, moreover, seemed kind of familiar and later, a couple of months later, he finally figured out why. He had really first heard Hazel back in 1970 when he was down in the those very hills and hollows that are a constant theme in her work, and that of the mountain mist winds music coming down the crevices. What is going on though? Is it 2005 when he first heard Hazel or that 1970 time? Let me go back and tell that 1970 story.
Kenny Jackman like many of his generation of ’68 was feeling foot loose and fancy free, especially after he had been mercifully declared 4-F by his friendly neighbors local draft board in old hometown North Adamsville. So Kenny, every now and again, took to the hitchhike road, not like his mad man friend Peter Paul Markin with some heavy message purpose a la Jack Kerouac and his beat brothers (and a few sisters) but just to see the country while he, and it, were still in one piece. On one of these trips he found himself kind of stranded just outside Norfolk, Virginia at a road-side campsite. Feeling kind of hungry one afternoon, and tired, tired unto death of camp-side gruel and stews he stopped at a diner, Billy Bob McGee’s, an old-time truck stop diner a few hundred yards up the road from his camp for some real food, maybe meatloaf or some pot roast like grandma used to make or that was how it was advertised.
When he entered the mid-afternoon half-empty diner he sat down at one of the single stool counter seats that always accompany the vinyl-covered side booths in such place. But all of this was so much descriptive noise that could describe a million, maybe more, such eateries. What really caught his attention though was a waitress serving them “off the arm” that he knew immediately he had to “hit” on (although that is not the word used in those days but “hit on” conveys what he was up to in the universal boy meets girl world). As it turned out she, sweetly named Fiona Fay, and, well let’s just call her fetching, Kenny weary-eyed fetching, was young, footloose and fancy free herself and had drawn a bead on him as he entered the place, and, …well this story is about Hazel, so let us just leave it as one thing let to another and let it go at that.
Well, not quite let’s let it go at that because when Kenny left Norfolk a few days later one ex-waitress Fiona Fay was standing by his side on the road south. And the road south was leading nowhere, no where at all except to Podunk, really Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and really, really a dink town named Pottsville, just down the road from big town Prestonsburg, down in the hills and hollows of Appalachia, wind swept green, green, mountain mist, time forgotten . And the reason two footloose and fancy free young people were heading to Podunk is that a close cousin of Fiona’s lived there with her husband and child and wanted Fiona to come visit (visit “for a spell” is how she put it but I will spare the reader the localisms). So they were on that hell-bend road but Kenny, Kenny was dreading this trip and only doing it because, well because Fiona was the kind of young woman, footloose and fancy free or not, that you followed, at least you followed if you were Kenny Jackson and hoped things would work out okay.
What Kenny dreaded that day was that he was afraid to confront his past. And that past just then entailed having to go to his father’s home territory just up the road in Hazard. See Kenny saw himself as strictly a yankee, a hard “we fought to free the slaves and incidentally save the union” yankee for one and all to see back in old North Adamsville. And denied, denied to the high heavens, that he had any connection with the south, especially the hillbilly south that everybody was making a fuse about trying to bring into the 20th century around that time. And here he was with a father with Hazard, Kentucky, the poorest of the poor hillbillies, right on his birth certificate although Kenny had never been there before. Ya, Fiona had better be worth it.
Kenny had to admit, as they picked up one lonely truck driver ride after another (it did not hurt in those days to have a comely lass standing on the road with you in the back road South, or anywhere else, especially with longish hair and a wisp of a beard), that the country was beautiful. As they entered coal country though and the shacks got crummier and crummier he got caught up in that 1960s Michael Harrington Other America no running water, outhouse, open door, one window and a million kids and dogs running around half-naked, the kids that is vision. But they got to Pottsville okay and Fiona’s cousin and husband (Laura and Stu) turned out to be good hosts. So good that they made sure that Kenny and Fiona stayed in town long enough to attend the weekly dance at the old town barn (red of course, run down of course) that had seen such dances going back to the 1920s when the Carter Family had actually come through Pottsville on their way back to Clinch Mountain.
Kenny buckled at the thought, the mere thought, of going to some Podunk Saturday night “hoe-down” and tried to convince Fiona that they should leave before Saturday. Fiona would have none of it and so Kenny was stuck. Actually the dance started out pretty well, helped tremendously by some local “white lightning” that Stu provided and which he failed to mention should be sipped, sipped sparingly. Not only that but the several fiddles, mandolins, guitars, washboards and whatnot made pretty good music. Music like Anchored in Love and Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies, stuff that he had heard in the folk clubs in Harvard Square when he used to hang out there in the early 1960s. And music that even Kenny, old two left-feet Kenny, could dance to with Fiona.
So Kenny was sipping, well more than sipping, and dancing and all until maybe about midnight when this woman, this local woman came out of nowhere and begins to sing, sing like some quick, rushing wind sound coming down from the hills and hollas (hollows for yankees, okay). Kenny begins to toss and turn a little, not from the liquor but from some strange feeling, some strange womb-like feeling that this woman’s voice was a call from up on top of these deep green hills, now mist-filled awaiting day. And then she started into a long, mournful version of Hills of Home, and he sensed, sensed strongly if not anything he could articulate that he was home. Yes, Kenny Jackson, yankee, city boy, corner boy-bred was “home,” hillbilly home. So Kenny did really hear Hazel Dickens for first time in 1970, see.
