song - evergreentrad

02 Jun

Lovel (revisited)

As Lovel was a-walking a-walking one morning
He espied two peddlers two peddlers a-coming
He boldly stepped up to them and called them his honey
Saying “Stand and deliver boys for all I want’s your money.”
Lol te de a de um, Lol te de a dum.

“O we are two peddlers two peddlers are we sir
And you are Mr. Lovel we take you to be sir
O we are two peddlers that have lately come from Dublin
And all that we have in our box is our beddin’ and our clothing.” Lol te de…

As Lovel was walking up Kinsberry mountain
He espied two rich misers their guineas they were counting
First he cocked his blunderbuss and then he drew his rapier
Saying “Stand and deliver boys for I’m a money taker.” Lol te de…

“O Lovel, O Lovel my poor heart’s a-breaking
For little did I think my love you ever would been taken
And if I had’ve known that the enemy was a-coming
I’d have fought like a hero although I’m but a woman.” Lol te de…

“O Polly, O Polly my poor heart’s a-breaking
If it had not been for you my love I never would been taken
For while I was a-sleeping not thinking of the matter
You discharged my pistols and loaded them with water.” Lol te de…

As Lovel was walking all up the gallows ladder
He called to the sheriff for his Irish cap and feather
Saying “I have robbed money but never killed any
I think it hard that I must die just for grabbing money.” Lol te de…

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We return this month to this wonderfully obscure and fun-to-sing variant of “Whiskey in the Jar” recorded in 1924 from Akeley, Minnesota singer Reuben W. Phillips (see N.S. Sep. 2014). The Lost Forty recently arranged Phillips’ version of Lovel and the video above shows us performing it at the beautiful Stone Saloon building in St. Paul.

I am thrilled to announce that the original field recording of Phillips singing Lovel, along with many others, is now online on the new Minnesota Folksong Collection site! Visitors to www.minnesotafolksongcollection.org can access (for free) over 40 field recordings of Minnesota singers recorded in 1924. Many of the songs featured in Northwoods Songs over the past four years appear in the collection. The site is currently relatively bare-bones but over the next few months I will be adding features to help encourage visitors to learn songs from the collection and to learn more about the Minnesota-based source singers. The site does feature sheet music transcriptions of the song melodies (a labor-intensive feature for me to create but, hopefully, something that helps users decipher the very low fi recordings).

When folklorist Robert W. Gordon recorded Minnesotans Reuben W. Phillips and Michael C. Dean, he typically only captured one or two verses of each song—rationing out the valuable space on his wax cylinders. Luckily, both Phillips and Dean supplied Gordon with complete written texts for most of the songs they sang. I have combined their texts with the field recordings on the Minnesota Folksong Collection site just as I have done above and in previous Northwoods Songs.

Phillips’ handwritten manuscript of song texts is full of many nonstandard spellings of words which I have altered to more standard spellings above and on the website to help users access the texts more easily. I have also opted to shift some of the transcriptions into keys I feel are more suitable for sight reading.

I would love to hear some feedback from Northwoods Songs readers regarding the functionality of the new site! Please check it out at www.minnesotafolksongcollection.org and drop me a line to let me know what you think.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

01 Apr

To Work Upon the Railroad

In eighteen hundred and sixty one
The Yankee war had just begun,
I put my corduroy breeches on
To work upon the railroad.

In eighteen hundred and sixty two
My corduroy breeches they were new,
I took my pick with a navvy’s crew
To work upon the railroad.

In eighteen hundred and sixty three
I sailed away beyond the sea,
I sailed away to Americay
To work upon the railroad.

In eighteen hundred and sixty four
We landed on Columbia’s Shore,
Bad luck to the ship that brought me o’er
To work upon the railroad.

It’s “Pat do this” and “Pat do that”
Without a stocking or cravat,
Nothing more than an old straw hat
When Pat works on the railroad.

We left Ireland to come here
And spend our latter days in cheer,
Our bosses they did drink strong beer
And Pat worked on the railroad.

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Minnesota singer Michael C. Dean sang one verse (“In eighteen hundred and sixty four…”) of the above song for Robert W. Gordon’s wax cylinder recording machine in 1924. Of the more than 30 song fragments Gordon recorded from Dean, “To Work Upon the Railroad” is the only one that does not correspond to a more complete text in Dean’s self-published 1922 songster The Flying Cloud. For that reason, we do not know what other verses Dean knew, if any. My guess is that they resembled the first three verses I chose to include here which come from a version printed in Joanna Colcord’s Songs of American Sailormen. The verses collected by Colcord line up well with Dean’s in the years they use and the fact that they are not split up by a chorus. Versions of this song are plentiful and I decided to throw in two additional verses at the end which I adapted from Alan Lomax’s Folksong U.S.A. Dean’s melody does seem to be unique and it gives the song a more mournful tone than other versions (to me at least).

If Dean knew this song in 1924, why didn’t he print it in his 1922 songster? We can’t know for sure, but my suspicion is that he actually learned the song in the interim. My research, using the Robert W. Gordon collection at the American Folklife Center, turned up ample evidence that Dean, then in his late 60s, was actively seeking out old folk songs to add to his repertoire in those years. The printing of The Flying Cloud helped connect Dean to a network of academic song collectors and other old traditional singers who swapped songs with Dean—sometimes by mail. He was likely seeking out old songs from his co-workers at the Virginia Rainy Lake Lumber Company mill in Virginia, MN where he worked as well. In my research, I have found multiple instances of singers who built up a large repertoire before the age of 25, did not learn many songs during the middle of their lives and then resumed adding to their repertoire when, late in life, they realized the value of their old songs. Based on other cases I know of, my guess is that Dean’s later years were enriched by the realization, supported by feedback from Gordon and others, that his songs were worth preserving. Along with that realization came energy to learn new songs and to build friendships with other singers.

For this month’s video of The Lost Forty’s arrangement of “To Work Upon the Railroad,” we performed the song aboard Northern Pacific Caboose 1631 at the Minnesota Transportation Museum in St. Paul. Thanks to Danielle Enblom at the the museum!

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

01 Mar

The Crafty Miss

O she on a little grey mare and he on a gelding also,
He whispered one word in her ear and straight to an inn they did go,
They soon had their horses put out, they called for a supper with speed,
They drank the full bumpers around, O the glass it went merry indeed.

This miss she arose the next morning two hours before it was day,
She called up the landlord with speed saying “Landlord what is there to pay?”
“Ten guineas” the landlord replied, she paid him his money indeed,
And then to obey her next order, “Go saddle the golden with speed.”

She hoodwinked this young man indeed, she showed him a trick for his gold,
Then mounting the gelding with speed, she left him the mare she had stole,
It was all done in Essex’s county, the truth of it there you will find,
The people they showed him no pity, they said he was served in his kind.
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This month we have the second song of twelve that The Lost Forty (Randy Gosa and I) have arranged and videotaped as part of The Lost Forty Project. I learned last month’s song from a recording of Minnesota singer Michael Cassius Dean and this month’s comes from the other Minnesota singer strongly represented in the project: Reuben Waitstell Phillips.

Phillips was recorded at his home south of Akeley, Minnesota by Robert Winslow Gordon in September 1924—about a week prior to Gordon’s visit to Dean. Like Dean, Phillips had corresponded with Gordon prior to the collecting trip. The above song was one of 22 handwritten song texts Phillips sent to Gordon in March 1924 and one of at least 15 Gordon recorded during his visit to Akeley.

Listen to Reuben Phillips sing part of this song (or click here to view in the MN Folksong Collection):

Phillips titled this light and dancey song (in slip jig time) simply “A Lilt.” It is a version of an English broadside ballad entitled “The Crafty Miss, Or, An Excise-Man Well Fitted” that scholars date to the late 1600s. What is quite unusual for a song of that vintage recorded this far from its origin is that it seems to have been extremely rare in tradition. In fact, I have not been able to find a single collected version from anywhere. The longer broadside versions supply the information that the “hoodwinked” young man was a tax collector and that not only did she make off with his horse but the fact that he was left holding “the mare she had stole” resulted in his arraignment and a narrow escape from “the penalty of the law!”

As I have dug deep into the 47 songs featured in The Lost Forty Project, I have come to marvel at the differences and similarities between the two principle singers: Dean and Phillips. Though it is unlikely they knew each other, both men were born in the 1850s not more than 30 miles from each other in northern New York state and both migrated west to northern Minnesota where they lived just 120 miles apart at the time they were recorded. Still, where Dean’s repertoire is typical of lumberjack-singers of the region in that it is decidedly Irish-American, most of Phillips’ songs are more English/Scottish, quite a bit older and quite a bit more rare. Some of that has to do with their differing ethnic backgrounds but, I suspect, their occupations and routes west played a role as well. More on that in coming months!

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.