video - evergreentrad

03 Dec

You Rambling Boys of Pleasure

This month we feature a performance of the song of the month, “You Rambling Boys of Pleasure” by Norah Rendell!

Norah’s album Spinning Yarns does not include “You Rambling Boys of Pleasure” but it does feature four other beautiful songs from Angelo Dornan’s repertoire.

Oh you rambling boys of pleasure, join in in those few lines I write,
It is true I am a rover, in roving I take great delight,
When infirmity shall overtake me, old age will force me to roam no more,
But til youth and strength forsake me, I will seek adventure on some foreign shore.

What a foolish boy was I, for to get fond of anyone,
Sure I had my choice of twenty, if ever I chose to wed at all,
I placed my mind on a young girl, often times I thought she did me slight,
Yet my mind was never easy, but when that girl was in my sight.

Oh she told me to take love easy, just as the leaves fell from the tree,
And I being young and foolish, to please my love I did agree,
I believed I could gain her favor, but as time went on it was plain to see,
That my love was unrequited, my blind devotion made a fool of me.

Oh must I go away broken hearted, for to court a girl I never knew?
Or must I be transported, kind cupid won’t you set me free?
I wish I were in Dublin, with a flowing bowl on every side,
Hard fortune will never grieve me, for I am young and the world is wide.

__________________________

My wife Norah Rendell is about to release an album of traditional songs collected in Canada called Spinning Yarns. The recording includes songs collected in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario (with nods to Wisconsin and Maine sources as well)—all material that would fit well in this column. I am thrilled to have played on the recording and I am also delighted that Norah is lending her beautiful voice to the revival of the northwoods branch of the Irish tradition! After the past 8 years of poring over hundreds of recordings and transcriptions of singers from the Maritimes to the Great Lakes, I am still amazed at how many wonderful songs and singers were spread throughout this part of the world. I am also struck by how little-known this fascinating music is. Norah’s album will surely kindle more interest in these rich traditions.

The source singer most represented on Spinning Yarns is Angelo Dornan of Elgin, New Brunswick. For anyone that might question connections between the traditional singing styles of Ireland and that of the northwoods regions, Dornan’s highly-ornamented singing is a revelation. I transcribed this month’s song from a recording made by collector Helen Creighton at Dornan’s home in September 1954.

17 Nov

The Clipper Ship Dreadnaught (Laws D13)

We have a flash packet, she’s a packet of fame,
She belongs to New York and the Dreadnaught’s her name;
She is bound for the ocean where the stormy winds blow,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.

Now we are laying at the Liverpool dock.
Where the boys and the girls on the pier-heads do flock,
And they gave us three cheers while their tears down did flow,
Bound away on the “Dreadnanght” to the Westward we’ll go.

The “Dreadnaught” is lying in the river Mersy,
Waiting for the tug “Constitution” to tow us to sea,
She tows around the Black Rock where the Mersy does flow,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.

And now we are howling on the wild Irish sea,
Where the sailors and passengers together agree,
For the sailors are perched on the yard arms, you know,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.

Now we are sailing on the ocean so wide,
Where the great open billows dash against her black side,
And the sailors off watch are all sleeping below,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.

And now we are sailing off the banks of New Foundland,
Where the waters are deep and the bottom is sand,
Where the fish of the ocean they swim to and fro,
Bound away on the “Dreadnaught” to the Westward we’ll go.

And now we are howling off Long Island’s green shore,
Where the pilot he bards us as he’s oft done before,
Fill away your main top sails, port your main tack also,
She’s a Liverpool packet, Lord God, let her go.

And now we are riding in New York Harbor once more,
I will go and see Nancy, she’s the girl I adore,
To the parson I’ll take her, my bride for to be,
Farewell to the “Dreadnaught” and the deep stormy sea.

___________________

This month we are back to Minnesota singer Michael Cassius Dean with another song where I have taken the text from Dean’s 1922 Flying Cloud songster and transcribed the melody from Dean’s singing on a 1924 field recording made by Robert Winslow Gordon. The Gordon recording of this song is quite hard to hear so I was also aided by Franz Rickaby’s 1923 transcription of Dean singing “The Clipper Ship Dreadnaught.”

The Dreadnought (originally spelled with an “o”) was a famous packet ship that carried both goods and passengers (including many immigrants to the US) between Liverpool and New York in the 1850s and 60s. She was celebrated for her great speed.

from the book From the Forecastle to the Cabin (1887) by Captain Samuel Samuels (the Dreadnought’s captain)

The song seems to be of American origin though it was no doubt modeled on similar English songs. Dean was one of many Great Lakes region singers who sang “The Dreadnaught” and it was also popular in the maritime provinces of Canada. The only version I have found from outside North America is one collected by Sam Henry from a Co. Donegal singer where the ship’s name has been changed to “The Zared” and the port of origin is “Londonderry” instead of Liverpool.

More info on this song available from the Traditional Ballad Index here.

20 Oct

Barney Blake

[as usual, I mis-remembered a few bits of the melody in this recording… I’d redo it, but the location was too good!]

O me name is Barney Blake, I’m a roving Irish rake
I’m considered by my neighbors good and handy
I was brought up to the spade til I learned the tailor trade
And I think myself as good as Ben or Sandy.

Chorus
O it’s Biddy Donahue sure I caught my eye on you
If you marry Barney why be damn you’ll never rue
You’re the apple of me eye and my Irish cocateau
Mr. Cupid’s knocked me stupid over Biddy Donahue

It’s at a wedding of Pat Malare, sure I first met Biddy there
As I sat beside her at the wedding supper
How I felt I couldn’t say when she handed me the tay
For my heart it melted like a lump of butter.

Now she’s handsome and she’s mild she’s a dacent father’s child
She’s the pride of all around our Irish nation
You would go from here to Spain to hear her sing Napolean’s Dream
And for dancing, boys, she has a lovely carriage.

Now some folks they do try, for to poke out Barney’s eye
But in this I’m sure they all will find a failure
She would not see me fooled, she’s as good as guinea gold
And she’ll marry none [hold on “none”] but Barney Blake the sailor.

_________

This is another song I transcribed from a reel-to-reel recording made in Beaver Island, Michigan while I was at the American Folklife Center in Washington, DC this summer. Singer Dominick Gallagher (1867-1954) sang this for collector Ivan Walton in 1940.

A wonderful aspect of field recordings can be the chat caught on tape before and after songs. Walton made a point of asking Gallagher where he got each song and when he asked him about “Barney Blake,” Gallagher replied:

Gallagher:            “I learned that in the lumber woods about 45 or 50 years ago from a Canadian Scotsman.
Walton:                 “What lumber woods was that?”
Gallagher:            “Up in Grand Marais [pronounced Marase] on Lake Superior shores.”

The song itself seems to have its origins in the Irish music halls of the 1870s where I have found evidence of it being performed by (and perhaps written by) a song and dance duo by the names of Devlin and Tracy that were active in Boston and New York in that era. It was very common for singers to pick up Irish music hall songs and sing them unaccompanied in lumber camps. In fact, another version of Barney Blake was collected from Ottawa Valley singer O.J. Abbott.

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CORRECTIONS FROM PRINT VERSION: I made a couple mistakes in the version published in the IMDA October newsletter and they are correct above. Here’s what I got wrong the first time around:

First, I misidentified the singer as John W. Green instead of Gallagher who actually sang the song for Walton.

Also, I was a bit over-eager to claim a Grand Marais, Minnesota connection for this song based on this mention of “Grand Marais on Lake Superior shores.” After I sent in my column to be published in the IMDA October newsletter, a friend reminded me that there is another Grand Marais on the southeastern shore of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It is much more likely that Gallagher did his logging in the locality of the Michigan Grand Marais, not on Minnesota’s north shore.