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Here are a a few low-budget recordings of a couple ballads and a set of reels that Josh Dukes (flute), Sean "Ernesto" Earnest (guitar), and I put down in February 2008 with a bit more bling in the production values.
The first one is called 'Lay the Lily Low' or 'Jackie Monroe'. I learned it from the singing of a fantastic English singer, Gail Williams, although scholars differ. This story just goes to show that having a good woman on your side will save your life. I'm led to believe that this ballad was popular during the folk revival of the 1960s, though I of course cannot bear witness to such as I was but a blueprint at the time. It was performed also by the Grateful Dead.
The second is I think my favorite song or at least the one I delight the most in singing, 'Napoleon's Farewell to Paris'. It paints quite a vivid picture of the exiled Emperor perched on St. Helena, glimpsing as though from far above distant France. I learned it from the singing of the great, sorely missed Frank Harte who wrote that he was inclined to agree with the men of Devil's Island, Nova Scotia who had told Helen Creighton it was the best song about Napoleon they had ever heard. I also am in agreement. It must be good.
The next song is Enos White's setting of the 85th ballad in Francis Child's 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads', 'Lady Alice' or in this case, 'George Collins'. Anyway, the lucky bastard has been getting coital with this fit fairy woman for some time. It turns out she was so insatiable that his poor organ (his heart, of course) couldn't take any more and he croaked. Really, my own heart bleeds for him. I'm led to believe that Child almost opted to forego this ballad's inclusion into his manuscript on account of it's popularity on broadsides during his own lifetime. Who knew we'd be praying out of his great book a century after its publication?
Finally, we have a very special song and one close to my heart, 'Take Me Back to Old Crabtown'. I'm not certain where or with whom in Annapolis this song originated, but I learned it from my great aunt Leoba Velenovsky who was born in Annapolis in 1916. She has me under the impression that she and her friends used to sing it on St. Mary's school yard along with an Annapolis parody of 'Sweet Rosie O'Grady' and some popular songs from the era. It's quite a gem, actually, not only because the sentiment is quite cherishable, but because we Annapolitans aren't swimming in a sea of old local songs, much to my regret.
The 'Rosie O'Grady' parody, by the way, is:
"Sweet Rosie O'Grady, a blacksmith's daughter by birth.
She got tired of living and decided to leave the Earth.
She started dying by inches, but that stuff made her tahred (tired),
So she came to Annapolis and there she died by the Yard!"
The Yard, you see, is the Naval Academy. I think the bones of that parody are fairly common, but ours is unique to us, by God!
Those reels are Brendan McMann's, Tomeen O'Dea's, and Ah Surely!
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