Blogger Template by Blogcrowds and modified by JOSKI and BART

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The House of the Rising Sun



The House of the Rising Sun is one of the best-known rock songs, a landmark across many genres: American blues and folk, the British Invasion, garage rock and even punk. Its origins are complicated and contested; people still argue whether it was Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, or The Animals who ushered the song into the popular mainstream.

It probably dates to 18th-century American folk tradition but entered ethnographic fact on September 15, 1937, when folklorist Alan Lomax taped a 16-year-old miner's daughter, Georgia Turner, performing the song in Middlesborough, Kentucky. She received 117 $ for the recording.

Since then, many have rendered their own versions, from Roy Acuff (1937), Woody Guthrie (1941), Lead Belly (1948), Glenn Yarbrough (1957), to Bob Dylan (1961). The song, however, did not become a classic until 1964, when the The Animals from Newcastle, Britain made it into a number one hit.

Like many classic folk ballads, the authorship of "The House of the Rising Sun" is uncertain. Alan Lomax, author of the 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, wrote that the melody was taken from a traditional English ballad and the lyrics written by a pair of Kentuckians named Georgia Turner and Bert Martin. Other scholars have proposed different explanations, although Lomax's is generally considered most plausible.

Though the phrase "House of the Rising Sun" is often understood as a euphemism for a brothel (but it is not known whether or not the house described in the lyrics was an actual or fictitious place), the original song is more likely to tell the story of a young woman, a daughter who killed her father, an alcoholic gambler who'd beaten his wife (her mother).

Therefore, the House of the rising sun is rather a jail house - from which you are the first person to see the sun rise, because of its Eastern location, in Louisiana.



The oldest known existing recording is by versatile entertainer Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster and was released in 1933. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Texas Alexander's "The Risin' Sun", which was recorded in 1928, is sometimes mentioned as the first recording, but this is a completely different song.


Roy Acuff, who recorded the song commercially on November 3, 1938, may have learned this number from such neighboring Smoky Mountain artists as Clarence Ashley or the Callahan Brothers, an influential duet team of the '30s and '40s. In 1941, Woody Guthrie recorded a version. In late 1948 Lead Belly recorded a version called "In New Orleans" in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions (1994, Smithsonian Folkways.


In an interview by Martin Scorsese in his Dylan movie No Direction Home, folksinger Dave Van Ronk said that he had originally worked out the arrangement for his coffee house act. Dylan then "borrowed" the arrangement for his first album, 1962's Bob Dylan, without Van Ronk's permission, and recorded it before Van Ronk had got around to recording it himself. Van Ronk was also displeased because he thought that Dylan had butchered the song. Van Ronk was subsequently upset when people referred to his version as a cover of Dylan's song.



The inspiration for The Animals' arrangement is sometimes said to come from Dylan's recording, and other times said to be from Josh White or Nina Simone (who recorded it before Dylan on Nina at the Village Gate).




Various places in New Orleans, Louisiana have been proposed as the inspiration for the song, with varying plausibility. Only two candidates have historical documentation as using the name "Rising Sun", both having listings in old period city directories.



The first was a small short-lived hotel on Conti Street in the French Quarter in the 1820s. An excavation and document search in early 2005 found evidence supporting this claim, including an advertisement with language that may have euphemistically indicated prostitution.

The second was a late 19th century "Rising Sun Hall" on the riverfront of the uptown Carrollton neighborhood, which seems to have been a building owned and used for meetings of a Social Aid & Pleasure Club, commonly rented out for dances and functions. Definite links to gambling or prostitution, if any, are undocumented for either of these buildings, neither of which still exists.

Another claim is that The House of the Rising Sun actually existed between 1862 and about 1874 and was run by a Madam Marianne LeSoleil Levant whose name translates from French as "the rising sun". Offbeat New Orleans, a guide book on New Orleans, asserts that the real house was at 826-830 St. Louis Street between 1862 and 1874 and was purportedly named for its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant.

It is possible that the "House of the Rising Sun" is a metaphor for either the slave pens of the plantation, the plantation house, or the plantation itself, which were the subjects and themes of many traditional blues songs.
Dave van Ronk claimed in his autobiography that he had seen pictures of the old New Orleans Prison for Women, the entrance to which was decorated with a rising sun design. He considered this proof that the House of the Rising Sun had been a nickname for the prison. In this way the French version has it right. Pénitencier means prison.

Not everyone, however, believes that the house even existed at all. Quoted on the BBC's 'h2g2' database, Pamela D. Arceneaux, a research librarian working at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans is quoted as saying: "I have made a study of the history of prostitution in New Orleans and have often confronted the perennial question, 'Where is the House of the Rising Sun?' without finding a satisfactory answer. Although it is generally assumed that the singer is referring to a brothel, there is actually nothing in the lyrics that indicate that the 'house' is a brothel. Many knowledgeable persons have conjectured that a better case can be made for either a gambling hall or a prison; however, to paraphrase Freud: sometimes lyrics are just lyrics."


Here are the songs I gathered

01 Ashley and Foster - Rising Sun blues (1933)
02 Georgia Turner - The House Of The Rising Sun (Rising Sun Blues)
03 Roy Acuff - The Rising Sun
04 The Almanac Singers - House of the Rising Sun
05 Leadbelly with Marta - House of the Rising Sun
05 Woody Guthrie - House of the Rising Sun
05 Leadbelly - House of the Rising Sun
06 Josh White - House of the Rising Sun
07 The Weavers - House of the Rising Sun
08 Dave van Ronk - House of the Rising Sun
09 Nina Simone - the House of the Rising Sun
10 Bob Dylan - House of the Rising Sun
10 Joan Baez - House of the Rising Sun
11 Doc Watson - House of the Rising Sun
12 The Animals - The House of the Rising Sun
13 Johnny Hallyday - Le penitencier
14 Jimi Hendrix - House of the Rising Sun
15 Frijid Pink - House of the Rising Sun
16 Tracy Chapman - House of the Rising Sun
17 Be Good Tanyas - The House of the Rising Sun




Thanks to Wikipedia and Arnold Rypens

Listen and Learn


Posted by Joski at 2:06 PM | 4 comments  

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Origins of Dylan's "Only a Hobo"



Dylan recorded “Only a hobo” on August 12, 1963 for “the times they are a changing”. The recording was not released on the album and became an outtake and so was rejected along with Percy's Song, Paths of Victory, Moonshine Blues, Eternal Circle, and Lay Down Your Weary Tune, all of them pretty good songs.

The song however was given to “Broadside”


Where did Dylan get the inspiration for the song ?


It seems to have been based on a song called Only a Miner Killed, written by John Wallace Crawford in 1879. Aunt Molly Jackson recorded a variation on this in 1932, Poor Miner's Farewell, which was covered by John Greenway on a 1961 Folkways album called American Folk Songs of Protest, prefaced by an Aunt Molly Interview.


This is the version that Dylan was likely to have known.






Ted Chestnut who recorded "Only a Miner” in the 1920s, had actually worked in a mine for the Harding-Burlington Company, but he later told researcher Archie Green that he learned the song not at the mine but from his father, who was a preacher, and sang the song while accompanying himself on the home parlor organ as though it were a hymn.

At his mining job, Chestnut had to teach the song to another worker, who not only was unfamiliar with it but also preferred to make a parody of the lyrics.




But there is more :

Surely the 1939 “Tramp on the street” ( a song that already had left his marks on another early Dylan song “Man on the Street”, of which “Only a Hobo is just a better written version. Probably this came to Dylan by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott version of 1961.

Melodically the songs owes also debt to the Carter Family’s “Railroading on the Great Divide”, which Dylan sang at Gerde’s in 1961.

So here are the origins of “Only a hobo”
1 Ted Chestnut - He's only a miner killed in the ground
2 Aunt Molly Jackson and John Greenway - Poor Miner's Farewell
3 The Carter Family - Railroading On The Great Divide
4 Hank Williams – Tramp on the Street
5 Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Tramp on the street
6 Bob Dylan (Blind Boy Grunt for Broadside) – Only a Hobo / Talkin’ Devil


http://lix.in/-546cff

Love

Posted by Joski at 5:15 PM | 3 comments  
Labels:

Monday, June 29, 2009

Dillard Chandler (April 16, 1907 – January 1992)


Dillard Chandler (April 16, 1907 – January 1992) was an American Appalachian Folk singer from Madison County, North Carolina. He is chiefly known for his a cappella performances on compilation albums recorded by folklorist and musicologist John Cohen.

Chandler grew up in an old log cabin in the isolated mountain community of Sodom, North Carolina. This section of the North Carolina mountains is particularly rich in ballads, and noted folklorist Cecil Sharp transcribed several "Old World" ballads sung to him by several of Chandler's relatives in 1916. Chandler described the hills he lived in as being too rugged for a car to access. Often, his walk to school would be made impossible by footlogs being washed away by a creek. Chandler said that as soon as he became old enough, he left school to work in the logging industry. He was illiterate.


During the American folk music revival in the 1960's, John Cohen traveled to Western North Carolina to research and record traditional ballad singers.


The subject matter of the traditional songs is often dark; there are themes of murder, revenge, infidelity, and abandoned children. The origin of Chandler's songs range from 16th century Spanish ballads, to a tale of a hanging in nearby Burnsville, to a prison song from Gastonia.

Allmusic writes that Chandler sings with "deft precision, often with the song's strong sexual undercurrents intact."

Chandler knew hundreds of songs that were shared in the community and passed on through generations.



The first singing that I ever heard was old-timey meeting songs, and these old songs like I sing, and these frolics where they get together and pick and sing and drink a little. Maybe a "lassie makin'," or maybe a corn shuckin', maybe a gallon hid in the corn pile. They'd go ahead an' shuck into that—pick the banjo, have a dance. The only kind of music I know anything about is old ballads—just learning songs from somebody else that I've heard sing 'em.

Appalachian author and musician Sheila Kay Adams said of Chandler, "Dillard was kind of an anomaly; he was caught in between worlds. He was a wonderful singer. Now, his voice was odd, and I think that it was from Dillard that I learned that weird phrasing that is so common to these love songs, that sets them apart.”

Chandler's version of "I Wish My Baby Was Born" has been covered by Uncle Tupelo, Tim Eriksen, Riley Baugus and Tim O'Brien (for the Cold Mountain Soundtrack and joined here), and The Be Good Tanyas.

Even people in his native Madison County often described Chandler as a "mysterious man" who "didn't live in one specific place, but would just show up from time to time." Unlike many such folk singers discovered during the folk revival of 1960s, Chandler rarely performed at festivals or on radio. Travel arrangements were made for Chandler to play the 1967 Newport Folk Festival, but he didn't make the trip.

The 1967 University of Chicago Folk Festival saw Chandler's only visit outside the mountains. His performance was marked by his shy and eccentric mannerisms, as he rocked back and forth and sung facing the side of the stage.

Chandler spent time working in Asheville, and was "remembered as a man who loved to sing"





Here are the songs I gathered

01. The Carolina Lady
02. The Soldier Traveling From the North
03. The Sailor Being Tired
04. Gathering Flowers
05. Gastony Song
06. Cold Rain and Snow
07. Awake, Awake
08. Mathie Grove
09. Short Time Here, Long Time Gone
10. Drunken Driver
11. Jesus Says Go
12. Meeting Is Over
13. Little Farmer Boy
14. I Wish My Baby Was Born
15. Old Shep
16. Rain and Snow

17. Hicks Farewell

I also joined as a kind of bonus two songs by my friend Tim Eriksen of Cordelia’sDad. He is definitely one of the best singers in American roots music. He "connects the present and the ancient with an immediacy that will make your bones tremble." A songwriter of rare intensity and an inventive multi-instrumentalist, he redefines American tradition with a "northern roots" sound that encompasses old Massachusetts murder ballads, chilling shape-note harmonies and originals alongside southern Appalachian and Irish songs.







Listen and Learn

Posted by Joski at 10:43 AM | 3 comments  
Labels:

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Woody Guthrie - His greatest songs




There are two reasons why calling this album "The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie" rather than some variation on the greatest hits idea makes sense.


First, Guthrie was out singing these songs before there ever were any Billboard charts to help defiine exactly what constituted a hit. Second, although this album starts with Guthrie himself singing "This Land Is Your Land," clearly his most famous and most popular song, the track shifts to the song being sung by the Weavers. Guthrie sings a few songs and few duets, but mostly his songs are sung by other artists. So what we have here is a tribute album, originally a double-album now on a single CD, that represents some of the best first and second generation folk singers who followed in the path blazed by America's troubadour.




The first generation would be those artists that actually got to play with Guthrie, which would be not only the Weavers with Pete Seeger (the artist who most closely followed in Guthrie's footsteps), but also Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry and Ramblin' Jack Elliott. The next generation is represented on the album by Odetta, Joan Baez, and Country Joe McDonald. Yes, there is an authenticity to hearing Guthrie sing his songs that nobody else can touch, but there is something to be said for other artists replacing his rawness with more of the inherent beauty of his songs (the same way Peter, Paul & Mary did for Bob Dylan).

One of the outstanding tracks is Odetta's "Pastures of Plenty," simply because it best represents how far you can go with Guthrie's music from its folk roots and make it work. When you listen to Cisco Houston do "Do-Re-Mi" you are moving a notch up on the authenticity level, and with the Weavers singing "So Long (It's Been Good to Know You)" and "Jackhammer John" you get a real sense of how these songs were popularized. Of course, everytime you actually get to hear Guthrie sing on one of these tracks, such as the duet with Houston on "Hard, Ain't It Hard" you want to go listen to one of Guthrie's own albums, so those tracks tend to be a bit intrusive given the overall theme of the album.

This is breathtaking from the beginning till the end



Listen and Learn

Posted by Joski at 11:36 AM | 2 comments  
Labels:

Classic A.L. Lloyd


Albert Lancaster Lloyd (29 February 1908- 29 September 1982), usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s.


Bert Lloyd was a great father-figure to the aspiring folk-revivalists of the 60s. His albums are good – well chosen traditional songs sung with great conviction – he sang beautifully if not always in perfect pitch (who cares). He was a consummate performer and put great spirit into the songs he sang. He was recorded in Australia, (where he spent most of the years of his childhood) in America and England. There are probably over 100 albums that he has sung on.


Classic A.L. Lloyd is a generous seventy-six minute long covering his recording period with Topic Records.Here are the folk club favourites such as John Barleycorn, Farewell to Tarwathie and Sovay; the shanties "Roll and Down the Bay" and "Blood Red Roses" (which he sang in John Huston's film "Moby Dick"); Australian songs and whaling songs.

We hear Bert in different moods from the tender - "Foggy Dew", and "Weaver and the Factor Maid" - to the joyful amusement of "Short Jacket and White Trousers", and "Byker Hill". He approached the big ballads in the same way he sang the lesser songs not with awe and respect but as good stories worth telling, just listen to "Tam Lin" or the "Demon Lover" then tell me that the big ballads are boring.

The songs are accompanied in the main by the great Alf Edwards on concertina and by the young Dave Swarbrick on fiddle, the assortment of additional musicians and singers read like a folk revival hall of fame. Eleven of the tracks are unaccompanied.

http://lix.in/-4ba0d4

Enjoy the Master

Posted by Joski at 11:20 AM | 2 comments  
Labels:

Hard times n the Country (1927-1938)


Here is a wonderful collection of 18 songs taken from old 78 rpm records (put out from 1927 to 1938) that reflect the difficulties of life in the rural south in the years of the great depression.


While all of the songs deal with real problems of life in hard times, they all incorporate various degrees of humour in their presentations, and all of the performances are musically sound - many of them real gems.


The Lee Brothers bemoan a workingman's fate in "Cotton Mill Blues," while Blind Alfred Reed sounds nearly hopeless in "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Hard Times and Live." As Bill Malone writes in the liner notes, farmers in the south had experienced hard times before the Great Depression.


Following the Civil War, America began to evolve into a country of urban centres and small farmers became sharecroppers or tenants. Despite the downbeat subject matter, Hard Times in the Country is — musically speaking — an enjoyable collection. Fiddle, guitar, and banjo accompany Kelly Harrell’s vocal on the catchy "My Name Is John Johanna," while bright, bouncy banjo bolsters Uncle Dave Macon's lively "Wreck of the Tennessee Gravy Train."


Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster deliver "Bay Rum Blues," which sounds like a stripped-down version of a jug band song, and Lowe Stokes offers his unadorned opinion in "Prohibition Is a Failure." Besides providing a musical document of the rural south, the songs on this collection also offer an interesting juxtaposition to trends in country music (the 1990s and beyond).


The earlier music is founded in the customs and habits of rural workingmen and women, and it's easy to imagine that players like Fisher Hendley had at least secondhand knowledge of a weaving room.







Listen and Learn

Posted by Joski at 11:03 AM | 0 comments  

The land where the blues began - Alan Lomax


A self-described "song-hunter," the folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s and 40s, sometimes in the company of black folklorists like John W. Work III, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta's music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues began, Lomax gave voice to such greats as Leadbelly, Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, and many others, all of whom made their debut recordings with him.


This is the soundtrack to Alan Lomax's acclaimed book of the same name.

Here is an unforgettable tour of the haunted landscape that gave birth to the blues, a story told through the work of such legendary figures as Muddy Waters and Fred McDowell, as well as in the work songs, field hollers, hymns, ballads, fife-and-drum music, sermons, stories, and barroom toasts chronicled in the book.


Recorded between 1933 and 1959 by Alan Lomax, Lewis Jones, John W. Work, John A. Lomax, and Herbert Halpert. Remastered to 24-bit digital from the original metal and acetate discs, and the original paper and acetate-backed tape recordings.

Alan Lomax takes us on an adventure into the "bad old days" of the post-slavery, Jim Crow Mississippi Delta — the birthplace of the blues — when railroads and levees were being built and cotton boomed at the expense of Southern working-class African Americans.


Singing of their misery and their barely concealed rage, the Bluesman enlisted their African heritage to keep their souls alive and in the process created the first satirical song form in the English language..

Listen and Learn

Posted by Joski at 10:40 AM | 0 comments  
Labels:

Older Posts

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)