It doesn't get much better than than this. This is a collection of
"field recordings" by the noted discographer and rare record
seller Lou Curtis.
"Blaggardy songs" Jim Garland called these celebrations of errant
character. His term is an Appalachian derivative of "blackguard" and the
population of these songs largely embraces personalities of impossibly mean
disposition. Much found on this album is described from a first- person
vantage; it seems that the joy of their performance lies in the temporary
adoption of a mask of outrageous countenance. Therefore although outre
sexual behavior is the order of the day here, this lp is fashioned less as a
collection of the bawdy than of the iconoclastic. However, although some are
only sweetly naughty, concerned parents and radio broadcasters will probably
prefer to avoid its flagitious core, for nothing here has been censored.
It has long been realized that ribald materials form a substantial
underpinning for more recognized balladry, but, until recently, these
materials were not available for study except in the field. In particular,
reliable phonograph recordings of traditional sources are quite scarce.
About twenty years ago, Mack McCormick issued a similarly intentioned
Unexpurgated Songs of Men (sic) and good material, more often black than
white, can be found on an occasional "party" record. The present album is an
attempt to document a range of authentic materials, all performed by
traditional singers. Admittedly "traditional" is a nebulous term to employ
in this context, for urban folksong enthusiasts will typically have learned
their lewd songs, if no others, through certifiable "folk processes". But no
collegiate performances are heard here; the songs are all drawn from the
country, even if they thrive in urban climes as well. This collection is
only a small start for there is much more to sample. In particular, I regret
that no performances of the large corpus of bawdy songs known to Southern
women could be arranged for this lp, for some of the chill of male
domination could have been removed thereby. However we could not induce any
informant to relax her moral scruples sufficiently for a recording.
The Songs:
The British derived Last May Morn presents the reprehensible
behavior of its protagonist in a rather favorable light, but nonetheless was
not considered "dirty" by its elderly singer, who acknowledged acquaintance
with songs in a rawer vein which he would not sing for us. Many Appalachian
singers, however, find songs like this, Mathy Groves or The
Trooper and the Maid obscene, despite their venerable heritage. Songs
like One Morning in May or the tamer versions of The Little Ball
of Yarn sometimes pass muster only because their double-entendre
is unrecognized. The present text is quite close to an English one supplied
in Reeve's The Idiom of the People. Further ranging variants can be
bound in several American collections, e.g. Good Morning, My Pretty
Little Miss in Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians. The song seems well known in northeastern Kentucky; Clay
Walters supplied a similar version to the Library of Congress.
Jim Garland's version of Crawling and Creeping is likewise fairly
close to its British prototype, e.g. Harry Cox's Nancy and Johnny
on EFDSS lp 1004 or Ernest Austin's Knife in the Window on Topic
12T243. The latter text is combined, as frequently happens, with the ancient
Hares on the Mountain, parent of the ubiquitous Roll Your Leg
Over. In the Appalachians, there has been a tendency to detach the song
from the original story; another version (from North Carolina) I have heard
appends to a text like Jim's:
Weil, I jumped right out and shit in the floor
Said, "It's been good pussy but it won't no more" (sic)
In about nine months she fell to weeping
'Long came a bastard crawling and a-creeping
I went to the doctor with a hack and a cough
Said
"I can save your dick but your balls'll rot off."
A good example of a similar devolution is The Little Ball of Yarn,
for which Glenn Ohrlin provides a particularly full text. Originally a
rather gentle piece, Topic Records has included several renditions among its
offerings of traditional English folksong. Mike Yates also reports that the
song is related to The Yellow, Yellow Yorlin' found in Burns'
Merry Muses of Caledonia. According to hearsay, coarser texts are also
encountered in Britain. An almost completely chastened text was published in
1870's as a love song and it is uncertain whether the Southern Melody Boys
would have fully recognized the erotic elements in their somewhat incoherent
Bluebird recording. Glenn's version allows no interpretative leeway however;
this is the way the song is most often encountered (Jim Garland had a
version of intermediate obstreperousness). The appended verses of grotesque
punishment for the seduction are quite bizarre, but represent typical,
burlesqued "atonements" in this genre.
One-eyed Riley is likewise of British origin, although its
unmitigated rowdiness make its antecedents hard to trace. Ed Cray's The
Erotic Muse contains a discussion of a typical urban version. Jim's
mountain text, learned from his brother "Bad" John, is an especially good
one. (Incidentally I view the unrealistic sexual violence portrayed here as
antisocial farce rather than misogynist fantasy, but listeners will want to
frame their own opinions on this point.)
Probably of equal age to these are many of the jingles which accompany
fiddle and banjo tunes. The Ryestraw (a.k.a. The Unfortunate Pup
or Joke on the Puppy) melody is likely Scots in origin and some
form of Jim's quatrain is known to most fiddle players -- cf.. Clayton
McMichen's kidding introduction to his instrumental performance on Rounder
1005. I would be surprised if the ditty is not locatable in Scotland as
well. R.P. Christeson's The Old Time Fiddler's Repetory says the tune
is intended as an imitation of a constipated dog; I wonder if this reading
is not a later addition -- rather like Walt Disney's classical
"interpretations" in Fantasia.
Many of the fiddle and banjo ditties live a double life of sorts. I once
obtained the following couplet from a Kentucky fiddler:
I've got a grandpa, bless his old soul
All he wants is a fiddle and bow.
Further inquiry revealed that the "real words" ran ". . .All he wants is
a peter in the hole". Such Hydes lurk behind many respectable Doctor Jeckles
-- for example, on the Power Family's commercial recording of Old Granny
Hare, "dog turd" has been replaced by "butterdish" and "asshole" by
"keyhole". Such emendations induce a peculiar surrealism in the song (which
ultimately traces to the Scottish Fairy Dance). These alterations are
probably of modern vintage, since scatological references in themselves do
not seem to have been taboo in the mountains until recently. For example,
Jim learned his Mother Goose so:
There was an old woman lived under the hill
She shit in her stocking and sent it to the mill.
The miller swore and proved by his wife
He never took toll from a turd in his life.
In published texts, this is invariably bowdlerized to "mouse", which
destroys its sense.
As Jim rightly stresses, many selections on this lp should rightly be
regarded as children's songs, for whom they serve as haphazard
vehicles of sexual education. (Nonetheless, I doubt Rounder will include
this record in its 8000 series!) In fact, our semi-reluctant informants are
frequently embarrassed by the childish nature of some of this
material. Many of the snippets of lyric scattered throughout this collection
were learned in grade school from other children. Some of these fragments
occasionally flower into more developed form. For example, Harmonica Frank
Floyd's Shampoo on Barrelhouse 05 is a development of Jim's God
Damn Her Old Soul, She's Dead. The bizarre Old Granny Cripplecunt
reappears as part of an Indiana fiddle tune, Good Old Cabbage:
Pussy on a haystack; peter on a pole
Drop cock, dodge cock, wink asshole. . .
Limericks are a common form of recreation among the educated, but the
recovery of a fossil of the 1850's like A Conversation between Queen
Victoria and President Buchanan from a Kentucky coal miner is quite
unexpected. Jim learned this from one Matt Donaldson and says that he
arranged for Donaldson to record this and others for folklorist Mary
Barnicle, whom Jim escorted through the mountains in the mid-thirties. The
disc is presumably now buried in the Library of Congress' sizable, but
largely uncatalogued, collection of folksong erotica.
Longish poems are often called "toasts" by blacks, whereas Jim Garland
used this label for his shorter recitations. The Eagle is more
episodic than most and may represent a medley of briefer fragments. Indeed
Jim knew the couplet beginning "Up to it, down to it" independently.
George's concluding apology which provides the title for this lp represents
a fairly common, ritualized ending for a toast and is not intended as
genuine avuncular slander. The tag serves rather as a charm to ward off the
evil effects produced by the poem's performance. Roger Abrahams and Bruce
Jackson both have books surveying like material. The latter has an
accompanying lp on Rounder 1014. Good material may be found on commercial
records; those by Rudy Ray Moore are particularly recommended.
The art of lengthy memorized narrations has been finely developed among
the cowboys. Julius' Hermit of Shark Tooth Shoal is not obscene, but
features a paragon of "blaggardy" behavior as protagonist. Julius remembers
seeing this printed once "with an apology to R.W. Service"; it shows how
close such poetry is to the "folk" level. (He also knows an excellent
unfettered parody of Dangerous Dan McGrew itself.) The Open Book
was written by cowboy composer Curley Fletcher, and its mention of
Sunset and Gower Boulevards in Hollywood date it to the time Fletcher worked
as an extra for the movies. Glenn says that many variants have sprung up on
the rodeo circuit and the present sample is only about a third of the total.
As Glenn explains, Curley Fletcher "wrote his own parodies before
somebody else could get to them". His Strawberry Roan in its original
form has become one of the best loved ranch ballads and his original Wild
Buckaroo can be heard on Arhoolie lp 5007. The Castration of the
Strawberry Roan enjoys much underground popularity and a "party" record
of it once appeared by an ensemble sounding suspiciously like the Sons of
the Pioneers. Glenn knows yet another "blue" version of the song, which
could not be fit in here.
The Uncle Bud song, in its various guises, is certainly quite old,
although Texan singers, such as George Bernard, invariably now associate it
with Bud Russell, the notorious Texan prison transportation officer before
the war. The present text is full and atypical; other versions can be heard
on Flyright's Library of Congress series and Roosevelt Charles1
Vanguard record (remarkably dry-cleaned). Riley Puckett sings a related
piece on Rounder 1005.
The Great Wheel is an extremely widespread piece, which Glenn
sometimes also sings. Presumably it originates in the late nineteenth
century. Harry Babad's Roll Me Over has a related Little Piece of
Wang song which seems to be the text Gus Meade collected in Ohio.
Although Ed Cray dismisses this as a recent "clever effort", our cantefable
from the Southern Mountains suggests that its symbolism is older.
Barnacle Bill the Sailor, in its present form, is hard to date.
Frank Shay's More Friends and Drunken Companions presents a partial
text of Rollicking Bill the Sailor resembling the Abel Brown
in sailor collections, of which he writes "This bit must be meat and drink
to those initiates who know the correct words,...but it is well to remember
that the Pilgrims landed on the rock." Frank Luther popularized a "juvenilized"
Barnacle Bill on commercial records during the Depression. The
present text may represent a parody of his which unwittingly restores the
song to original potency. Likewise the Tattooed Lady motif has assumed
protean vestments, ranging from the common Tra-la-boom-de-ay setting
to Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg's Lydia the Tattooed Lady, sung to
great effect by Groucho Marx, Smokey Rogers learned his version while
working in Vaudeville. Only merely "naughty", its ribaldry pales in present
company, although it is a nice performance nonetheless.
I have relatively little to report about the pieces of more nondescript
vintage, such as the well known Winnipeg Whore or the less common
In Mexico. Good sources are the Babad and Cray books already cited, as
well as Harold Hart's The Bawdy Bedside Reader. Most versions of
The Ring Dang Do, incidentally, include the explanatory:
Oh, the ring dang do, now what is that?
It's soft and furry like a pussy cat
So round and warm and split in two ?
She said it was her ring dang do.
The Singers:
Although one may hear a good deal of "blaggardy" material in the field,
it is difficult to bring it to disc and we are deeply grateful to the
artists for recording the material found here, much of which is at odds with
their present moral tenets.
The late Jim Garland was originally from Bell County, Kentucky
where he was blacklisted for union activities. He spent the 'thirties in New
York City where he engaged in folksong activity with his sisters Sarah
Gunning and Molly Jackson. During the war he moved to Washougal, Washington.
Jim had a great fund of unusual folklore, and composed the popular I
Don't Want Your Millions, Mister and Death of Harry Simms from
personal experience. He wrote a fascinating autobiography which will be
published by the University of Kentucky Press.
Buford Pippin was an elderly retired miner from Delight, Kentucky
and a good singer of old ballads. Wash Nelson was in his nineties and
from the Ashland area. Both have passed away since these recordings were
made.
Julius Sorel is a rancher in his fifties from Leupp, Arizona and a
great storehouse of laconic cowboy wit. Glenn Ohrlin,, originally
from Minnesota, now runs his cattle in Mountain View, Arkansas. Author of
The Hellhound Train and several lp records, Glenn is a frequent
performer at folkfestivals. Smokey Rodgers has enjoyed a long career
in country music, having worked as a vocalist for Spade Cooley, Tex Williams
and many bands of his own. He now lives on a ranch in Victorville,
California.
George Bernard from Washington, Texas is in his late sixties and
now a Holiness preacher. Hearing Sam Chatmon (cf. Rounder 2018)
perform some of his rowdy pieces at the San Diego Folk Festival induced
George to come into Lou Curtiss' record store and announce "OK, I'm going to
put all this stuff down for you so you'll have it and then I'm never going
to mess with it no more". And he hasn't.
Side 1
1. The Ring Dang Do -- Glenn Ohrlin
2. I Fucked an Old Girl in the Graveyard / Here's to Old
Meg -- Julius Sorel
3. One-eyed Riley -- Jim Garland
4. The Eagle -- George Bernard
5. The Wild Buekaroo -- Glenn
Ohrlin
6. The Piece of Wang -- Buford Pippin
7. The Tattooed Lady -- Smokey Rogers
8. Barnacle Bill the Sailor -- Glenn
Ohrlin
9. Last May Morn -- Wash Nelson
10. The Little Ball of Yarn -- Glenn
Ohrlin
Side II
1. Crawling and Creeping -- Jim
Garland
2. The Open Book-Glenn Ohrlin
3. The Winnipeg Whore -- Julius Sorel
4. Granny Hare / Little Girl from Arkansas / Ryestraw / She
Went Around the Huckleberry Bush / Blackeyed Susie -- Jim Garland
5. The Castration of the Strawberry
Roan-Glenn Ohrlin
6. The Hermit of Shark Tooth Shoal -- Julius Sorel
7. Blue Balls from Bellman / Fucking Does the Women Good --
Buford Pippin
8. Uncle Bud-George Bernard
9. Lost the Race by Jesus / My Organ Grinder / Here's to the
Whore / In Mexico -- Julius Sorel
10. Old Granny Cripplecunt / God Damn Her Old Soul / I Sent a
Rabbit for a Bucket of Beer / A Conversation between President Buchanan and
Queen Victoria -- Jim Garland
11. The Great Wheel -- Glenn Ohrlin
Produced and recorded by Mark Wilson and Lou Curtiss
Cover design by Gene Waldman
Annotated by Mark Wilson
Rounder Records
186 Willow Ave.
Sornerville, Mass 02144
