Helen Hartness Flanders - evergreentrad

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 19^th 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.

05 Dec

The Lady Leroy

Bright Phoebus arose and shone o’er the plain,
The birds were all singing, all nature seemed gay,
There sat a fair couple, on the old Ireland shore,
A-viewing the ocean where billows did roar.

“Fair Sally, fair Sally, the girl I adore,
To go away and leave you, it grieves my heart sore,
Your father is rich and is angry with me,
And if I longer tarry, my ruin he’ll be.

She dressed herself up in a suit of men’s clothes,
And to her old father disguised she did go,
She purchased a vessel, paid down his demands,
Little did he dream ’twas from his own daughter’s hands.

She went to her true love and unto him did say,
“Make haste and get ready, no time to delay,
Make haste and get ready, let bright colors fly.”
And over the ocean sailed the Lady Leroy.

And when her old father came this to understand,
He swore his revenge on that worthy young man,
Saying, “My daughter Sally shall never be his wife,
And for her disobedience, I’ll take her sweet life.”

He went to his Captain and unto him did say,
“Make haste and get ready, no time to delay,
Make haste and get ready, let bright colors fly.”
He’d sworn by his maker, he’d conquer or die.

They scarcely had sailed past a week or ten days,
When wind from the southeast it blew a fine breeze,
They saw a ship a-sailing, which filled them with joy,
They hailed her and found ’twas the Lady Leroy.

They bade them return unto old Ireland’s shore,
Or broadsides of grapeshot among them they’d pour,
But Sally’s true lover he made this reply,
“For the sake of fair Sally I’ll conquer or die.”

Then broadside for broadside most furiously did pour,
And louder than thunder, bright cannon did roar,
At length the Irish beauty, she gained the victory,
Hurrah for the sons of sweet liberty!

We close out 2022 with one more that was part of Michael Dean’s repertoire. Dean printed his version of “The Lady Leroy” in his 1922 songster and sang it for collector Franz Rickaby in 1923 and, again the next year for collector Robert Winslow Gordon. From Rickaby’s brief notes we know that Dean learned it from his mother Mary McMahon Dean (1821-1907) who emigrated to Smiths Falls, Ontario from County Mayo in about 1842 (later crossing into northern New York). Other family members knew the song as well. Dean told Rickaby that “all his folks sang it.” You can hear and see Dean’s version on the Minnesota Folksong Collection website.

The Lady Leroy was collected in several parts of the United States and Canada and, while sifting through other versions this week, I fell in love with one collected in Springfield, Vermont from singer E.C. Beers. Beers was recorded in 1930 by Alice Brown and the recordings can be accessed on archive.org as part of the Flanders Ballad Collection. The above is my own transcription of Beers’ version based on the recording. Another transcription appears in the book Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads. I was drawn to the twists and turns of Beers’ melody which is quite different than other melodies I found in use for the song.

A recent book, Bygone Ballads of Maine, Volume I compiled by Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee has another unique version from Maine singer Carrie Grover with the closing line: “Here’s a health to all fair maids; may they always go free!”

The only Irish source I found is Sam Henry’s Songs of the People which has a version from the north of Ireland. More recent performers such as The Battlefield Band and Jimmy Crowley have recorded “The Lady Leroy” with a melody similar to what Dean sang here in Minnesota 100 years ago.

25 Oct

Farewell to Caledonia

My name is Willie Rayburn, in Glasgow I was born,
The place of my residence I was forced to leave in scorn;
From home and habitation was forced to gang awa’,
So fare-you-well, you hills and dales of Caledonia.

The crime that I was taken for was robbery and fraud,
I lay the blame on nae one upon this earthly sod;
I lay the blame on nae one, but comrades I had twa,
So fare-you-well, the hills and dales of Caledonia.

It was early the next morning before the break of day,
Our turnkey came to us, those words to us did say,
“Rise up, you pitiful convicts, I warn you one and a’,
This day you leave the hills and dales of Caledonia.”

Then I arose, put on my clothes, my heart was filled with grief,
My friends they gathered around me, but could grant me no relief;
They bound me down in irons for fear I’d run awa’,
So fare-you-well, you hills and dales of Caledonia.

Here is to my old father, he is one of the best of men,
And also to my own true love, Catharina is her name,
No more we will roam by Cylde’s green banks or by the brim awa’,
This day I leave the hills and dales of Caledonia.

Goodbye to my old mother, I am sorry for what I have done,
I hope it ne’er will be cast to her the race that I have run;
I hope the Lord will protect her when I am far awa’,
So fare-you-well, you hills and dales of Caledonia.

We return to the deep and fascinating repertoire of Irish-Minnesotan singer Michael Dean this month for a Scottish song that has a long history in Ireland. Like “Highland Mary” and other songs, “Farewell to Caledonia” likely came from the pen of a Scottish song maker and went to the north of Ireland with the flow of itinerant workers and immigrants between the two islands. It was printed as a broadside in Scotland in the mid-1800s as “Jamie Raeburn’s Farewell” (the song’s narrator is Jamie in most versions). Sam Henry printed a variant from Strabane, County Tyrone in his Songs of the People newspaper column in 1926. The song appears in several Scottish song collections and has been popular with many singers and bands since the folk revival of the 1960s.

Across the Atlantic, the song turns up in Mike Dean’s Minnesota-printed Flying Cloud songster as well as in the repertoires of two New England singers recorded by Helen Hartness Flanders: Sidney Luther of Pittsburg, New Hampshire and Charles Finnemore of Bridgewater, Maine. We have no record of what melody Dean used. Luckily, Finnemore is one of my favorite New England singers so I was delighted to discover the recording of him singing his version in October 1945. Finnemore’s melody is quite close to that sung by Ontario/North Dakota singer Arthur Milloy for the song “Mines of Cariboo” which is a favorite of mine. The above is a combination of Dean’s text and Finnemore’s melody.