28 Feb

The Raftsman

I’ll tell you of a raftsman right from the pinery,
And how he loved a lady, she was of a high degree,
Her fortune was so great it scarcely could be told,
And still she loved the raftsman because he was so bold.

One day when they had been to church and were just returning home,
They met her old father and several armed men,
“Oh daughter, oh daughter, oh daughter I pray,
Is this your good behavior, or is’t your wedding day?”

“I fear,” cried the lady, “we both shall be slain,”
“Fear nothing at all,” said the raftsman again,
“Now, since you’ve been so foolish as to be a raftsman’s wife,
Down in this lonely valley I will quickly end your life.”

“Hold,” cried the raftsma, “I do not like such prattle,
Although I am the bridegroom, I’m all prepared for battle,”
He drew his sword and pistol and caused them for to roar,
The lady held the horses while the raftsman battled sore.

The first man came to him, he ran him through the main,
The next one stepped up to him, he served him the same,
“Let’s run,” cried the rest of them, “we all shall be slain,
To fight this gallant raftsman is altogether vain.”

“Stay,” cried the old man, “you make my blood run cold,
You shall have my daughter and five thousand pounds in gold,”
“Oh no,” cried the lady, “the fortune is too small,
Fight on, my bold raftsman, and you shall have it all.”

“Oh raftsman, oh raftsman, if you will spare my life,
You shall have my daughter for your beloved wife,”
He took them home unto his house, he made him his heir,
It wasn’t out of love but it was from dread and fear.

Come all you rich maidens with money in great store,
Never shun a raftsman, although he may be poor,
For they’re jolly good fellows—happy, fresh, and free,
And how gallantly they fight for their rights and liberty.

______

A few months ago I came across a remarkable series of blog posts by folklorist Stephen Winick about the ballad “Arthur McBride” – the one that was so beautifully rendered by Paul Brady on the iconic Andy Irvine and Paul Brady album in 1976 and at this videotaped 1977 performance. Writing on the American Folklife Center’s Folklife Today blog, Winick tells us that Brady learned the song while living in New England, from a collection compiled by Carrie Grover of Gorham, Maine. Grover (1879-1959) was a singer herself who got most of her repertoire (which appears in her collection A Heritage of Songs) from her parents while growing up in Nova Scotia and Maine. She was part of the north woods singing tradition and that makes Brady’s “Arthur McBride” a northwoods song! What’s more, if you open Grover’s book to the Arthur McBride page, the facing page is her father’s version of “The Jolly Soldier”—also arranged and performed by Paul Brady on the album with Andy Irvine!

Arthur McBride 001

“The Jolly Raftsman” and the first part of “Arthur McBride” as they appear in Carrie Grover’s book A Heritage of Songs.

When I discovered the Grover-Brady connection, my mind went to an interesting song text collected in Wisconsin and published in Wisconsin Lore by Robert E.Gard and L.G. Sorden. Gard and Sorden’s “The Raftsman” is basically a version of “Jolly Soldier” with Raftsman swapped in for Soldier. It seems a little out of place for someone going down the river with a raft of logs to be packing both a sword and pistol but the character of the recklessly romantic hero does fit with the way raftsmen often portrayed themselves in other songs. Above I have paired the Gard/Sorden text (with a few small changes) with the melody (more or less) as published by Grover. For my own sung version, I swapped out the sword and pistol for the raftman’s trusty pike and peavey.

23 Dec

The Fellow That Looks Like Me


In sad despair I wander my heart is filled with woe,
Though in my grief I ponder what to do I do not know,
For cruel fate does on me frown and the trouble seems to be,
That there’s a fellow in this town and he just looks like me.

Chorus:
Oh wouldn’t I like to catch him, whoever he may be,
Wouldn’t I give him particular fits, that fellow that looks like me.

One evening I sat speaking to a girl as dear as life,
When a lady who had just dropped in says “Brown how is your wife?”
In vain I said “I’m a single man, ’tis married I wish to be,”
She called me a swindler and kicked me out for the fellow that looks like me.

With a lady fair I started to the Central Park to go,
But was stopped in the street by a man who said “Pay the bill you owe.”
In vain I said “I know you not,” He would not let me free,
’Til a crowd came ’round and the bill I paid for the fellow that looks like me.

Then to a ball one night I went, and was just enjoying the sport,
When a policeman caught me by the arm saying “you’re wanted down in court,
You escaped us twice but this here time we’ll take care you don’t get free,”
They dragged me off and locked me up for the fellow that looks like me.

I was tried next day, found guilty too, was about to be taken down,
When a second policeman then brought in the right criminal Mr. Brown,
They locked him up and set me free wasn’t he a sight to see,
For the ugliest wretch that ever you saw was the fella that looked like me!

This month I chose a light-hearted song that I have been meaning to learn for a while. I came across it via the rich digital archive of MacEdward Leach’s field recordings from Newfoundland made available by that province’s Memorial University. Leach recorded a wonderful, lilty version from Trepassey singer Cyril O’Brien in 1951. “The Fellow That Looked Like Me” was also sung in logging communities in Pennsylvania and Michigan as well as in Appalachia where it eventually made its way into the old time country repertoire by way of recordings by Al Hopkins and his Buckle Busters and others.

The song had its start in the 1860s during the early days of vaudeville in New York where it was written by Dublin-born John F. Poole and performed by the “Father of Vaudeville” Tony Pastor around 1867. Irish composers, melodies and themes were a central part of vaudeville in those years. Poole and Pastor also teamed up on the famous song lamenting anti-Irish job discrimination, “No Irish Need Apply,” as well as the original “Tim Finigan’s Wake” (yes that “Finnegan’s Wake!”).

Of all the versions I’ve found from folk sources, Newfoundlander Cyril O’Brien’s is my favorite and it’s also the closest to Poole’s original composition. The above melodic transcription is from O’Brien and the text is my own blend of O’Brien’s text and the original text published by Poole. Poole’s original is available online here.

28 Nov

Sweet Recale

I am a rich merchant’s only son, my age is twenty-two,
I fell in love with a handsome girl, the truth I will tell you,
And because that I had riches great and she was of a low degree,
Which caused my parents for to frown and prove my destiny.

They sent me to Americay, my fortune for to seek,
I was shipwrecked on the Austria, that now lies in the deep,
But Providence to me proved kind, a plank brought me to shore,
I’m in hopes to see my handsome girl at Sweet Recale once more.

It was on the morning of the fourth just by the break of day,
This handsome girl stepped up to me and this to me did say,
“Where are you from, my nice young man, come quickly tell to me,
Or are you from the heavens above, where is your country?”

“Oh I am a stranger in this place, the truth to you I’ll tell,
For loving of a pretty fair maiden in the town of sweet Recale.
And because that I had riches great and she was of a low degree,
Which caused my parents for to frown which proved my destiny.”

“Oh come tell me are you married to that girl you left behind?”
“No, but I’m already promised and a promise that’s good and kind,
I am already promised to that girl in sweet Recale,
And except her no other fair maids will ever my favor gain.”

And this fair maid fell a-weeping tears rolled down her rosy cheeks,
“Oh here is twenty guineas in gold for to bear you o’er the sea,
For love is better, I do find, than gold or earthly store,
May heavens above return you love, to sweet Recale once more.”

In 1934, Minnesota music teacher Bessie Stanchfield put out a call for old St. Croix Valley lumbermen to send in songs for publication in the Stillwater Post-Messenger. A man living in North Dakota who said he had been a lumberjack on the St. Croix Valley fifty years before wrote saying “I spent two winters working in one of Isaac Staples’ camps on the Apple River [WI]. The foreman was Andy McGrath. Every Saturday night we had a dance. Every Sunday night we sang. Tom Harrington, the camp blacksmith, was a fiddler, and the singers included Hendy Lane, James Riley, and young Jim McGrath.” The letter writer referred to one old song once popular in the area and remarked “Jim McGrath sang it fine.”

This Jim McGrath may likely have been James E. McGrath, son of John McGrath from Wicklow, Ireland and a successful (for a time) lumber company operator for whom the town of McGrath, MN is named. In any case, singer Jim McGrath was still in the Stillwater area in 1934 and in Stanchfield’s unpublished papers at the Minnesota Historical Society, she writes that, though he was a reluctant singer, “after one old-timer, then another, dropped into the office to tell of [McGrath’s] clear tenor and his great memory for the old songs” McGrath finally relented and began recalling for her “those pleasant evenings in the bunk house” and the songs that went with them.

The Stanchfield papers include part of McGrath’s text for “Sweet Recale.” I have mixed the McGrath text with melody and text again recorded by Alan Lomax in 1938 from Beaver Island, Michigan singer John W. Green (you can listen to Green’s version online via the Library of Congress) and a few lines nabbed from a third version collected in 1935 in Alger, Michigan by Gardner and Chickering.

I have found three 19th century broadside versions of this ballad from Ireland where the place name is either Belfast, Derry or Limerick instead of Recale. Lomax spells it Raquale and Gardner spells it Recail. I assumed it was a Great Lakes place name until another version recently turned up on the Irish Traditional Music Archive from Inishowen Penninsula singer Denis McDaid who sings Rycale. I’m at a loss as to the location of this mysterious place name!