Saturday 11 May 2019

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:




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










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







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...





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