13 May

Roll Her to the Wall

As I rode out one evening down by a shady lane,
I overheard Jim Johnson, a keeper of the game,
He says unto his servant maid “If it wasn’t for the law,
I’d take you by the slender waist and roll you to the wall.”

“Hold your tongue you young man and do not bother me,
Before you lie one night with me you must get me dishes three,
Three dishes you must get for me; suppose I eat them all,
Before you’ll lie one night with me at either stock or wall.

“For my breakfast you must have a fish without a bone,
And for my dinner you must have a cherry without a stone,
And for my supper you must have a bird without a gall,
Before you lie one night with me at either stock or wall.”

“When the fish it is all in its spawn I’m sure it has no bone,
When the cherry is in blossom I’m sure it has no stone,
The dove it is a gentle bird, it flies without a gall,
So you I in one bed lie, and you lie next the wall.”

“Hold your tongue you young man and do not me perplex,
Before you lie one night with me you must answer questions six,
Six questions you must answer me if I should ask them all,
Before you lie one night with me at either stock or wall.

“What is rounder than a ring? What’s higher than a tree?
Or what is worse than womankind and deeper than the sea?
What bird flies first? What flower blooms first? Or where does the dew first fall?
Before you lie one night with me at either stock or wall.”

“The earth is rounder than a ring, heaven’s higher than a tree,
The devil is worse than womankind, hell’s deeper than the sea,
The thrush flies first, the lily blooms first and the dew on the leaves first falls,
If those questions true I’ve answered you, now you lie next the wall.”

This couple they got married and happy now do dwell,
It’s every night when they go to bed into his arms she’ll crawl,
[use melody of 4th line:] He’ll take her by the slender waist and roll her to the wall.

The collection of “English and Scottish Popular Ballads” compiled by Harvard English professor Francis James Child in the late 1800s was so comprehensive and influential that the designation “Child ballad” continues to be used today, often complete with the ballad’s “Child number.” Professor Child endeavored to limit his collection to “traditional” (i.e. older) ballads and to discard more modern creations including “come-all-ye”-type story songs. In the pine woods of the Great Lakes region, it was precisely these come-all-ye ballads, along with even newer popular forms, that made up the bulk of singers’ repertoires. Child ballads turn up in Great Lakes collections, but they are far outnumbered by these other types.

This month we have the first Child ballad that has appeared in this column. The above “Roll Her to the Wall” is my composite of two Michigan versions of Child 46: “Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship.” My primary source was Alan Lomax’s 1938 recording of Beaver Island singer Dominic Gallagher. To help the riddles make a little more sense, I borrowed some words from verses in another version collected by Gardner and Chickering from Eliza Youngs of Greenville, Michigan in 1939. As with all recordings of Gallagher (in my opinion) his plaintive and subtly ornamented singing is beautiful and worth a listen via the Library of Congress’ online archive!

20 Nov

The Dublin Lasses Reel

Between 1910s and 1970s, folk song scholars, collectors and singers transcribed or recorded abundant examples of Irish-influenced traditional singing held over in the Great Lakes region from the days of live-in logging camps and fresh water schooners. The presence of instrumental music in old time Great Lakes logging camps is also well documented in photos and first-hand accounts but, sadly, very few transcribers or recorders bothered to capture any of the tunes!

I decided to take a month off from the songs and share an interesting version of an Irish reel (usually called “The Five Mile Chase”) from Beaver Island, Michigan fiddler Patrick Bonner (1882-1973). Bonner’s fascinating fiddle playing was recorded. Alan Lomax recorded a dozen or so tunes from him in 1938 and Ivan Walton a dozen more in 1940. Bonner’s setting of “The Dublin Lasses” was one of some 80 or more tunes recorded between 1950 and the mid-60s by Edward “Edgar” O’Donnell. O’Donnell’s (low fi) recordings of Bonner are available online here.

Patrick Bonner was the son of Black John Bonner, believed to be the first Irishman to arrive on Beaver Island after the fall of the island’s Mormon kingdom in 1856. Black John was born on Rutland Island (=Inis Mhic an Doirn), County Donegal not far from Arranmore (the birthplace of most first generation Irish-Beaver Islanders). His song Patrick was born on Beaver Island and lived there his entire life working as a farmer, logger and sailor and entertaining on his fiddle at “dances, picnics, weddings, and house parties.”[1] Patrick Bonner’s playing is an intriguing blend of Irish fiddle style and a looser, simpler, more “American” approach. I highly recommend looking him up online to hear him for yourself!

[1] Sommers, Laurie Kay, Beaver Island House Party, (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996) 45.

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!