"Boy, She's A Daisy"
CD on The Living Tradition LTCD1301
Tradition Bearers series in 2002
Reviews
Kieron Means
Kate Lissauer
Introduction
Track List
Rosianne
Meet Her When The Sun Goes Down
Parting Hand
The Silk Merchant's Daughter
Say Darlin’ Say
War Medley
Dear Honey
Poor Soldier
The Southern Girl’s Reply
The Dying Legionnaire
Bucking Bronco
The Little Carpenter
Blue Mountain Lake
Gone Solid Gone
Hop High My Lulu Girl
The Scow On Cowdens Shore
The House Carpenter
I am delighted to have my son, Kieron Means, and my friend, Kate Lissauer, join me on this CD. I am deeply grateful for their wonderful musicianship and support.(top of page)
Kieron Means
My son, Kieron, was born in the US but has lived most of his life in the UK. His love and reverence for old songs comes mostly from being surrounded by them all his life. He has adapted the sound and style of the old-time banjo to fit the guitar. He has toured with me in the States and he had his first major tour of folk clubs and festivals in the UK in 2001.(top of page)
Kate Lissauer
Kate was raised in the States amongst friends and family who played old-time music. She has lived in the UK for several years but continues to play and sing old-time music.(top of page)
Introduction
Sara Grey is a New Englander, brought up in New Hampshire. She has lived in six other states (East to West). In addition she has spent more than half her life in Britain, mainly Scotland, where she now lives on the Isle of Skye. This range of locale, coupled to thirty-three years of world wide touring, as a performer, has served to give her insights and perspectives denied to many. She is a, deservedly, respected traditional singer, collector, banjo-player and story teller firmly anchored in the rich and highly diverse American song and ballad tradition.
She is joined on this album by her American-born, British-reared, son, Kieron Means, an acclaimed singer clearly influenced by his mother's repertoire. He, incidentally, has a forthcoming solo album in this same series.
Sara is a skilled interpreter, a distinctive voice, a singer of stature, who conveys an intimacy, a sense of hearing the private voice in public … She has, over the years, worked hard to demonstrate via countless workshops and innumerable conversations, the links textual and musical between North America and Britain. This has helped deepen our understanding and appreciation of the idiom in general and of the many specific lyric and narrative songs that we share.
Geordie McIntyre
7 April 2002 (top of page)
Rosianne
Sara - vocal & banjo
Bob Coltman in 1989, a dark wonderful contemporary version of "Lizzie Wan". Quite and extraordinary incest ballad, the original was first printed in Herd’s "Scottish Songs" in 1776. Borrowed from the ballad of "Edward". Bob has an uncanny way of contemporising an old ballad and giving it a text and tune that both takes you back in time and focuses you in the present.(top of page)
Meet Her When The Sun Goes Down
Sara - vocal & banjo, Kieron - vocal & guitar, Kate - vocal & fiddle
Adapted and arranged by Bob Coltman in 1975. He learned the tune and the first verse from and old 78 recording put out in the 20’s by the great Georgia pioneer Fiddlin’ John Carson, w`ho had an endless supply of eccentric jokey songs and odd fiddle rhythms. Bob swiped a bunch of verses from tradition and made up a bit.(top of page)
Parting Hand
Sara - vocal & banjo, Kieron - vocal & guitar
A lovely Ozark song from the singing of Mrs May Kennedy of Springfield, Missouri. In the Cecil Sharp collection it is known as "Sweet Ellen".(top of page)
The Silk Merchant's Daughter
Sara - vocal
Partly from the singing of Ginny Hawker, who learned it from Maggie Parker Hammons of Western Virginia. In this version the heroine never actually reveals her true identity but her lover just knows it. Other versions such as the one from Mrs Mary Sauels of Allanhand, North Carolina and the version from Roy Palmer’s collection "Oxford Book Of Sea Songs" are far more complete and clear, particularly about the cannibalism of castaway mariners, which was not only a recurrent theme in ballads but a documented practice in real life.
Like a sea song this occurs in Tim O’Connors notebook of 1778 and Sharp in 1976. The ultimate source seems to be a lengthy broadside from the 18th century. Credulity is stretched to the limits in the long and short versions but it contains well known motifs of parental opposition to a marriage which cuts across parental divides and of female disguise in search of the banished lover.(top of page)
Say Darlin’ Say
Sara - vocal & banjo, Kieron - vocal & guitar, Kate – fiddle & vocal
The tune is probably from Tommy Jarrell. I learned it partly from Bob Carlin and partly from the singing of Dirk Powell of Ohio & Kentucky. An old-time variation of the lullaby "Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say A Word". First recording made by the Virginia Mountain Boomers, which was a pseudonym for Ernest Stoneman and the Sweet Brothers and recorded on Folkways in 1957 by the Stoneman Family
War Medley
Its interesting how events and relationships etc. consciously and unconsciously have a strong effect on what we choose to sing. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in new York City on September 11th 2001, I found myself reflecting and singing songs about the grief of war. It prompted me to put them together for this CD.
They are Dear Honey, Poor Soldier, The Southern Girl’s Reply and The Dying Legionnaire.(top of page)
Dear Honey
Sara - vocal
From the William A. Owens’ collection of "Texas Folksongs". A fragment of a song in the form of a love letter and in free verse from one loved one to another. Numerous songs were collected this way from the Civil War. Perhaps one of the more poignant jewels, a tune and text that I have never heard elsewhere.(top of page)
Poor Soldier
Sara - vocal
From Frank Proffitt of North Carolina. I learned this wonderful haunting song from the singing of Ginny Hawker.(top of page)
The Southern Girl’s Reply
Sara - vocal
From the Frank and Anne Warner collection of "Traditonal American Folksongs". Part of the tune is the patriotic tune "The Bonnie Blue Flag" from the singing of Mrs G.K.Tillett – it was one of the most popular and stirring songs from the Confederacy in the American Civil War. The original Irish tune was "The Jaunting Car". A patriotic version was found in a small book "Songs and Ballads Of The Southern People 1861" but there the song, or poem, is called "True To The Gray" and Perle Rivers is given as the author. Perle Rivers poem/song also appears in Allan’s "Lone Star Ballads" and "A Collection Of Southern Patriotic Songs Made During Confederate Times"(top of page)
The Dying Legionnaire
Sara - vocal & banjo
Also known as "Bingen On The Rhine". This was written as a poem, by Caroline Norton, in 1888. Her father was the well-known playwright, Richard Brinley Sheridan. There are examples of songs with similar motifs such as "Annie and The Dying Soldier" from the Greig/Duncan collection from the North East of Scotland. I learned this version from the great Ozark singer, Almeda Riddle, from Heber Springs, Arkansas.(top of page)
Bucking Bronco
Sara – vocal, Kieron - vocal & guitar
A great little song from "The Girls Of The Golden West"; Dorothy Laverne, "Dolly" Good, Mildred Fern and Millie Good of Mt Carmel, Illinois. They both sang and played guitar and were one of the earliest and most popular Country Music acts. Their early recordings and concerts were in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Kieron and I give it our "best shot" on the yodels!(top of page)
The Little Carpenter
Sara - vocal & banjo
Collected by John and Alan Lomax in 1933 from Jim Howard of Harlan, Kentucky. The tune is reminiscent of other old-time tunes from around the Pipestem, West Virginia area. I learned it pertly from Kate Lissauer and partly from Hedy West.(top of page)
Blue Mountain Lake
Sara - vocal
This song comes from the singing of Lily de Lorme from near Plattsburg, New York. It was collected by Helen Harkness Flanders from Vermont. The reference to the "potions or pills" is that in the early part of the 1900’s Saramac Lake was a haven for TB sufferers.(top of page)
Gone Solid Gone
Sara - vocal & banjo, Kieron - vocal & guitar, Kate - vocal & fiddle
I learned this super little version of the well known old-time song from a friend, Fred Coon, a great banjo player and singer from Fairmont, West Virginia. Fred learned it directly from "Aunt" Jenny Wilson of Peach Creek, West Virginia. She was a great claw-hammer banjo player and storyteller. She used to speak of her dad as a "storeway" on a ship from England.(top of page)
Hop High My Lulu Girl
Sara - vocal & banjo, Kieron - vocal & guitar, Kate – vocal & fiddle
Learned from the singing of Jim Miller who learned it from fiddlers in North Carolina.(top of page)
The Scow On Cowdens Shore
Sara - vocal
Composed by Larry Gorman of Newcastle, New Brunswick. Larry was a logger of character who wrote prolifically from observation about all the different characters in the Maritime logging camps. The men who worked with Larry Gorman had a sort of love-hate relationship with him - they were fearful about what he would write about them and yet they were curious as well. The cook's scow (raft) preceded the loggers down stream carrying food and supplies needed on the drive. The crew ate in the open on the river banks and camped in tents near the scow. This song paints a lively picture of a crew of rivermen on the "Cowden's Shore" on the South West branch of the Mirramachi River. Cowdens farm fronts the river just above the mill-town of Newcastle, where the logs belonging to various owners were driven inside a boom and sorted. It took days and brought the shanty boys from all over: Indians, French, Scots, Irish from Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick ports of Bathurst and Richibueto, Rustigoucha, Nashweak and Oromocto rivers, Bras d'Or Lakes, Cape Breton, After a long winter and a hard drive men were ready to raise hell and drink and fight. If loggers knew Larry Gorman was working in a camp men from miles around wanted to join the same crew. Lousie Manne collected in 1948 several versions in the Mirramachi. This version was sung by Perle Hare of New Brunswick. Perle was a most important song-maker in the eastern woods minstrelsy from 1870's to the present day. The song is still sung in the Maritimes and Maine.(top of page)
The House Carpenter
Sara – vocal, Kieron - vocal & guitar
Also known as "The Demon Lover" in Child or James Harris – very widely sung all over the UK and the US. This Ozark version I learned from friends and great musicians, Cathy Barton and Dave Para of Boonesville, Missouri. They, in turn, learned it from a recording of Noble Cowden of Cusman, Arkansas. The wonderful Travis style rhythm came from her playing. I think it brings to the forefront the strong cross-over from black music and its influence on white ballad style. Its essentially the same song Sir Walter Scott published in 1812 except the lover is no longer a demon in the British versions and the lovers both drown when their ship goes down in a storm.(top of page)