As I roved out; Song comparisons

Some. As I roved out of the nation's outstanding folk art is produced by Riverside radio WRP are in New York City grant from the National Association of Broadcasters. Family that were lucky to. Sing in song swapping songs in the moonlight. Longo everybody had favorites and one of my favorite ones was the song about the hangman. I don't know why the subject of death and blood and hangman and things like that those fascinate children so it seems to me that that was one of my favorite songs and I was just a little bitty thing. And we would sing this song and I never thought there was any other way of saying it. Found out later there's Eversmann different ways in which we'll hear later. But you know the way I learned to sing it first

time in the bureau. Then you know go. Home go. Go.

Go. Go. Well that was our very informal and country fad version of the hangman song as we used to sing it and I was a little girl in Kentucky and as I said I always thought that that was the only way of singing it and there I thought that the song was much count as my father says it was a little ditty and just a lot of fun for us but we didn't think there's any

value to it. Later on when I got out into the world and started going to school I went away from home heard the song sung in many different ways and learned that it was a very bold and well thought of song and in some versions even sounds very dignified like this one for instance. This version of it called the pickle holly bush from England. Alan Lomax collected This from Walter Lucas and the people of sixpenny Handley in Dorset and he has this to say about it. The mention of the holly in the refrain indicates that this version is very old for Holly plays a magical part in pre-Christian rites such as those in that Stonehenge only a few miles from where this recording was made. And he says that Walter Lucas is a hurdle maker by trade and now you hear the song. Somewhere far I think god

your god are you all over yonder. Your sister and I are very overt the fat lady. Farther along that goes for our really low need no more gold or silver hero or bargain. Oh cool heard yours. Just thought I think I know your lover Id go harder still. The sad part I keep my

body from the cold but armed with a gallon Yeah I'm still going to cure your body for all the gold on your neck from the get through the whole book. And now here's Judy Collins. She's a modern American singer an urban singer and this is what her version of the prickle eye bush sounds like. But.

They. Bring me. Home. John Jacob Niles was one of the early earliest folk singers in this country and

sometimes is called the dean of American folk singers. Whether you like his singing or whether you don't you have to admit that he's a very interesting singer. He's a Kentucky man and he is a singer and collector of songs and writer of songs. He always introduces his song. As a sort of the flea he says. Now watch out for the histrionics. I'm going to do a great acting job on this and then he really does he gets up and and sort of hugs his dulcimer and looks off into the distance and sings the high man song to end all hang man songs. And he calls it the maid freed from the gallows which is the title that. It originally had hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Yeah. It's not good. Stuff. One of the oldest stories in folklore I guess or certainly one of the most universal stories

is the one about the lady who was stolen by the gypsies in very many countries of the world the story is told in song. Now in modern versions or in the even in some of the old versions we have today. It is her own car that she has chosen to leave her husband and her family and her baby and everything. Oldest versions of it and some of the old. Legends of it is that the gypsies put a curse on her when they see her they put a curse on her and she can't help herself she has to do this and she goes away and leaves her family at least that's a more acceptable story to me anyway. The first way that most of us in America have heard it I suppose is the passing a verse or two that is to recall it to your mind. It was.

Served with the right. This song has this very modern American versions too. And one of them is the one song by Woody Guthrie. Distance and record. He has I think and it's very lovely and very stirring and as only Woody Guthrie can do it here it is. If. It was late last night one of my last Khanabad is like you know the dawn of the gypsy de Gaulle of the gypsy day. Go saddle on the horse and. Haul it out to their wagon. Frank said I after them. Oh

I have heard them. Well I had not read the midnight moon don't know farther camp Hardly. I heard don't get the voice of the gypsy saying in that song of the gypsy. Have you heard like in your house and home you forsaken your. First like in Europe years ago playing with that song at the. First break in my ear to go in the gym. Think they were playing in my mind you know. They go home take off your buckskin gloves made by any lander.

And we'll ride back home to Gander and we'll run home again. No I won't take off. Oh learned my player. From day to day and playing with the give me all of it to me at that moment of humility. Strong in Chicago on her new record Simple Gifts for folk boys. Another version of the song. It's another version of A. Version of the story ballad the gypsy and this comes from.

I swear.

You never will. Never will. Well. Mr.. Harvey she's gone with the gun with. His. Brother and. My. Other son.

And. He's. There he's. With. You. Like a lot. While I was in England on my Fulbright scholarship the BBC wanted me to record everything I knew of my family songs brother and I did as many of the old ballads and songs as I could remember spent a long time down there in return. They let me go into their library and take out as many songs as I wanted and I made stacks of discs for me which I have guarded jealously in my house ever since. Here one of these discs is a man named spruik and he comes from Cali. And he sings a version

of the gypsy song with a very odd title it's called the trouble old gypsies. She has a brother mind that will lower your own Nation High Road West and I rode through options. Oh and the last I'd find me old beer is fried and was way way radio want to make you were Irish and line. Make your money go. What makes you your old ride hard to follow. Yeah neither do I my followers on Neither do I mind my mum. Neither do I mind me own dearest bride. Allow trouble with the drug. Oh are.

You in McCall. The Scottish singer. Has a lovely version off the ships tonight which he learned from his father. And his home. If you are the only one that ever heard song that tells about the gypsies casting a spell over the heroine and where the culprit is punished in the end. Oh no roll over on her just sorry. This might be. A.

Hole only. A saddle me me where I still like a gypsy. When George pick you and George because my husband were collecting folk songs in

Ireland we went up into county our MA one night through a very thick fog and we found the house of Shauna Boyle who was the man we were looking for and talk shone into crone in one of his father's songs and it turned out to be a fragment of the gypsy song. Here's John singing. Oh they were good with you or both of

them. Warm on a song version of the song that we cold. Goes like this. Coming along with us today and I hope that you can join us again next week when

traveling through the music of America and many of the portions of this program were compiled from recordings made by Gene Ritchie and her husband. She was on a bright scholarship in the British in next week's program. Jean what you talks and sings with Irish folk singer Jean Redpath. The program was produced by Isidore habe and directed by Stuart silver. As I roved out it's a recorded production of Riverside radio WRVA are in New York City reduced under a grant from the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the Radio Network.