Tag Archives: Carrie Grover

01 Mar

The Cuckoo

Our meetings are pleasure, our partings are grief,
But a false-hearted young man is worse than a thief,
For a thief can but rob you and take all you have,
But a false-hearted young man will bring you to the grave.

The grave it will rot you and bring you to dust.
A false-hearted young man no maiden can trust,
They will kiss you and court you fair maids, to deceive,
And there’s not one in twenty that you can believe.

Oh, I can love little or I can love long,
I can love a new sweetheart when the old one is gone,
I can tell them I love them to give their hearts ease,
And when their back’s to me I will love whom I please.

Most of my song-sleuthing is aimed at finding English language songs that traveled across the north Atlantic with Irish immigrants and took hold in the north woods regions of North America. This particular Irish repertoire spread throughout the white pine belt as logging and other industries moved westward through the 1800s. While the songs can be traced, with almost no audio recording evidence of singers recorded pre-1920, it is harder to speak authoritatively about singing style in the lumber boom years of the 19th century. Still, it is safe to state that Irish singing style, as it existed in that century, did mark the approach used in the north woods. I think it is also safe to say that the blends of Black American and Scots-Irish song traditions that formed the folk traditions in Appalachia and further south were less present in the north woods historically. There was an Irish-influenced “woods style” of singing that was distinct from styles prevalent to the south.

Of course, singers of those earlier times didn’t worry as much about these distinctions as we do! And the songs themselves crossed from community to community regardless of origin. This month we have a song that began as a broadside ballad in England and, skipping Ireland almost entirely, took hold in the American south where it became a standard of the Appalachian repertoire (and Americana music today). Whether “The Cuckoo” stopped in the lumbercamps before going south is unknown but it did end up in the repertoires of several woods singers in New England and the Canadian Maritimes. It is interesting to compare the stylistic differences between how it was sung by northern singers and the more commonly heard southern versions (for a quintessential southern version see this amazing video on YouTube of Clarence Ashley). 

Thanks to the massive collection of recordings brought together by Helen Hartness Flanders and now available freely online via archive.org, we have several northern versions of this song to enjoy. The melody and first verse above are from Hanford Hayes at Stacyville, Maine as recorded by Flanders in May 1942. The additional verses are from Nova Scotia/Maine singer Carrie Grover. A similar melody (basically a pared down version of lines 3 and 4) was used by singer George Edwards in the Catskills area of New York.

I love Hayes’ dark and quirky melody and his leisurely style. I’d recommend listening to the online recording to hear the way he ornaments the long note in the first bar of each line. His style is masterful and reminiscent to me of the great Angelo Dornan of nearby New Brunswick.

21 Nov

Young Matt Ilan

There was a lord, lived in the north,
He had one fair and comely daughter,
She fell in love with a young man,
He was a servant to her father.
But when the old man came to know,
He swore that he would quit that island,
The lady cries, “My heart will break,
If I must part with young Matt Ilan.”

One night he discussed his lady fair,
All in her silent, lonely chamber,
Saying, “Matt Ilan I’ll transport,
I fear my child she stands in danger.”
His daughter she in ambush lay,
Oppressed with grief, she went off smiling,
Saying, “My father I’ll deceive,
I will protect my young Matt Ilan.”

Then to his room straightway she went,
Desiring him for to awaken,
Saying, “Rise, my love, and go your way,
Or else I fear you will be taken.
This night I heard my father say,
In spite of fate he would transport you,
So go your way before it is day,
You know, my love, that I do adore you.”

She sat her down on his bedside,
For about the space of half an hour,
And every word her true love spoke,
The tears down from her eyes did pour.
Her arms about his neck she threw,
His arms about her waist he twined them,
“No lord nor duke will e’er I wed,
My heart will go with you, Matt Ilan.”

“And must I go away?” he said,
“Just like some poor, forlorn ranger,
And leave my service in distress,
And must I go without my wages?”
“Oh, here are fifty pounds,” she says,
“’Tis more than all my father owed you,
So now away before it is day,
And I wish, my love, I had gone before you.”

Then after this came many an earl,
And many a lord to court this lady,
‘Twas all in vain, it was all no use,
No lord nor earl could gain her favor.
Her father asked the reason why,
At which his daughter plainly told him,
“No lord nor earl will e’er I wed,
My heart has gone with young Matt Ilan.”

Oh, then up speaks her father dear,
“I did not know how dear you loved him,
Now, I will bring young Ilan home,
Since none there are you adore above him.”
A letter then she wrote straightway,
Her heart to him it was inclining,
So, to church away without delay,
And she made a lord of young Matt Ilan.

This month we have a beautiful, unique version from Maine of a song that is well-known in Irish music circles thanks to its popularization in the 1970s. The great Ulster musician, co-founder of The Boys of the Lough and song collector Robin Morton published “Matt Hyland” in his 1970 book Folksongs Sung in Ulster. (Morton, sadly, passed away last month.)  Morton’s source was Sandy McConnell, the father of his soon-to-be bandmate, Fermanagh musician Cathal McConnell. Sandy got it from another Fermanagh singer, Tommy McDermott. Morton observed that the song seemed to only be found in tradition in south Ulster.

As has often been the case in my research, the north woods of North America turn out to have been a place where Ulster songs migrated and survived. Carrie Grover sang the above version for collector Sydney Robertson-Cowell in 1941. Grover, born in Nova Scotia and based for most of her life in Maine, wrote in her book A Heritage of Songs “I have never heard anyone but my father sing this song, and he said he never heard anyone sing it but the man from whom he learned it. It is so long ago that I can’t be sure, but I think the singer was a man from New Brunswick whose name was Davidson.”

The source for my transcription was the audio recording of Grover made available online through the wonderful work of Julie Mainstone Savas on her Carrie Grover Project site (carriegroverproject.com). I recommend listening to the recording for Grover’s effective use of a sort of “in between” pitch at the peak of the opening phrase.

22 Oct

The Hat My Father Wore

I’m Paddy Miles an Irish boy, from far across the sea,
For singing or for dancing, oh, I’m sure I can please ye;
I can sing or dance with any man as I did in days of yore,
And on St. Patrick’s Day I long to wear the hat my father wore.

Oh, it’s old but it’s beautiful and the best you’ve ever seen,
It was worn for more than ninety years on that little isle so green;
From my father’s great ancestors it descended with galore,
It’s the relic of old decency, the hat my father wore.

I bid you all good evening, good luck to you I say,
And when I’m on the ocean, I hope for me you’ll pray;
I am going to my happy home in a place called Ballymoor,
To be welcomed back to Paddy’s land with the hat my father wore.

And when I do return again the boys and girls to see,
I hope that with old Erin’s style you’ll kindly welcome me;
And sing me songs of Ireland to cheer me more and more,
And make my Irish heart feel glad with the hat my father wore.

The sheet music for “The Hat My Father Wore” was printed in New York City in 1876. The cover of that publication lists it as one of the “Popular Songs SUNG BY JOHNNY ROACH THE GREAT FACIAL ARTISTE” with words written by Daniel Macarthy. Vaudevillian Johnny Roach also had a hand in popularizing the song “Dick Darby the Cobbler” (sung by Tommy Makem and countless others) as that song was part of a larger routine he did called, simply, “The Cobbler.” Roach also sang “When McGuiness Gets a Job” which, along with both other songs, went into tradition in the north woods. It is also worth noting that “The Hat My Father Wore” and the Orangeman’s song “The Sash My Father Wore” are directly related in text and tune but it is unclear which came first.

“The Hat” was in the repertoire of Minnesota singer Michael Dean and many other north woods singers I have researched throughout the Great Lakes and Maritimes. The above melodic transcription comes from the beautiful singing of Maine/Nova Scotia singer Carrie Grover (thanks to two digitized recordings available on the Carrie Grover Project site). Grover’s melody is full of delicious deviations from the much simpler melody printed in the 1876 sheet music. The text above is my own blend of Dean’s and Grover’s.