Bluegrass Blues

Shared country roots - it seems I'm still back in the USA:


Dim Light, Thick Smoke and Loud, Loud Music,  Flatt and Scruggs (YouTube)


A country song in the same vein:

Jerry Lee Lewis - It All Depends (On Who Will Buy The Wine) (1958)

Charlie Walker, Who Will Buy the Wine


Of the less secular bluegrass songs, this is one of the best:


Rank Strangers, The Stanley Brothers


Also:

Doc Watson, Farther Along


The Carter Family, The Church in the Wildwood


The Carter Family, Keep On the Sunny Side


Strangely, I find a link between this type of song (Bluegrass Gospel and Appalachian folk music) and the Dorset poems of William Barnes! I wonder if Cecil Sharp would have sensed it when he was collecting songs in Appalachia?

A further example: Bill Monroe, Y'All come

Cecil Sharp in Appalachia

Cecil Sharp's Appalachian Diaries

The geate a-vallen to.

In the zunsheen of our zummers

Wi’ the hay time now a-come,

How busy wer we out a-vield

Wi’ vew a-left at hwome,

When waggons rumbled out ov yard

Red wheeled, wi’ body blue,

And back behind ‘em loudly slamm’d

The geate a’vallen to.

Drough daysheen ov how many years

The geate ha’ now a-swung

Behind the veet o’ vull-grown men

And vootsteps of the young.

Drough years o’ days it swung to us

Behind each little shoe,

As we tripped lightly on avore

The geate a-vallen to.

In evenen time o’ starry night

How mother zot at hwome,

And kept her bleazen vier bright

Till father should ha’ come,

An' how she quicken'd up and smiled

An' stirred her vier anew,

To hear the trampen ho'ses’ steps

An' geate a-vallen to.

There’s moon-sheen now in nights o’ fall

When leaves be brown vrom green,

When, to the slammen o' the geate,

Our Jenny’s ears be keen,

When the wold dog do wag his tail,

An' Jean could tell to who,

As he do come in drough the geate,

The geate a-vallen to.

An' oft do come a saddened hour

When there must goo away

One well-beloved to our heart’s core,

Vor long, perhaps vor aye:

An' oh! it is a touchen thing

The loven heart must rue,

To hear behind his last farewell

The geate a-vallen to.

William Barnes

John Blackmore song setting (listen on Soundcloud)

The Vaices That Be Gone

When evenen sheädes o' trees do hide

A body by the hedge's zide,

An' twitt'ren birds, wi' plaÿèsome flight,

Do vlee to roost at comen night,

Then I do saunter out o' zight

In orcha'd, where the pleäce woonce rung

Wi' laughs a-laugh'd an' zongs a-zung

By vaices that be gone.

There's still the tree that bore our swing,

An' others where the birds did zing;

But long-leav'd docks do overgrow

The groun' we trampled beäre below,

Wi' merry skippens to an' fro

Bezide the banks, where Jim did zit

A-plaÿèen o' the clarinit

To vaices that be gone.

How mother, when we us'd to stun

Her head wi' all our naisy fun,

Did wish us all a-gone vrom hwome:

An' now that zome be dead, an' zome

A-gone, an' all the pleäce is dum',

How she do wish, wi' useless tears,

To have ageän about her ears

The vaices that be gone.

Vor all the maidens an' the bwoys

But I, be marri'd off all woys,

Or dead an' gone; but I do bide

At hwome, alwone, at mother's zide,

An' often, at the evenen-tide,

I still do saunter out, wi' tears,

Down drough the orcha'd, where my ears

Do miss the vaices gone.

William Barnes

Come down to-morrow night; an, mind

Don’t leave thy fiddle-bag behind;

We’ll sheake a lag, an’ drink a cup

O’eale...

We’ll snap the tongs, we’ll have a ball,

We’ll shake the house, we’ll lift the ruf,

We’ll romp an’ meake the maidens squall...