Old Joe Clark's a fine old man, tell you the reason why

He keeps good liquor 'round his house,
Good old rock and rye.
I'd never sung Old Joe Clark until the week I recorded it and it felt like a revelation. That has been the beauty of my life with Pete Seeger's book American Favorite Ballads. I've lived with it for fifty years. It's taught me chords that go together in a song - chords I hadn't known would work in that key. It's taught me how raucous one can get with only two chords, and much more. And singing this brought out a singing style I didn't know I had. What fun! Thanks, Pete.

We live down in the Cumberland Gap

Cumberland Gap is a song I sing differently from Pete Seeger. I'm not sure where I first heard the song. I can't name someone whom I am sure recorded it besides Pete. So I don't know how it entered my repertoire. I'm sure I heard it as a youth and I'm sure I picked out the melody from American Favorite Ballads and I imagine I then went on my merry way. Much like the settlers who followed Daniel Boone through this famous gap in the Appalachian Mountains. We Americans remember the pioneers, their fights with 'Indians,' their indomitable spirit, but how many remember that the Wilderness Road through the gap was a taxpayer-funded project! You didn't build that, Daniel, the US government did! Oh dear, early evidence that the individual achieves within the system of society and that government is a mighty engine for the generation of wealth. Socialism.

Frankie and Johnny

Frankie and Johnny is one of the great songs in Pete Seeger's American Favorite Ballads. It's one that can be really jazzed up, blues-ed up. I used what I think of as the 'Jimmie Rodgers Bump' for the intro and in between verses. You'll hear that rhythm a lot in Yodelin' Jimmie Rodgers songs. I changed lyrics substantially within the existing framework of the verses. My changes were made intuitively over the years I've sung this one. Pete said in the introduction to his Oak Publication "you can make it your own by singing it."

More from "Pete Seeger Lives Here"

Clementine, as in 'Oh, my darling,' is the first song from Pete Seeger's book that I changed some. He has it in 3/4 time; I do it as a blues/rockish 2/4 song. I use the same two chords, E and B7 and the same lyrics as Pete in his American Favorite Ballads book.
The last verse reminds me of Barbara Allen and other songs in which two plants/flowers grow up from a gravesite. Except in Clementine there is no 'true lover's knot,' no romantic allusions. No, the singer in Clementine, I think, is not heart-broken to lose his large lover.

Jesse James had a hand and a heart and a brain.

Here's another song from Pete Seeger's American Favorite Ballads, a wonderful songbook still in print (see my post Pete Seeger Lives Here). I sure had fun with this one. Jesse James is that kind of iconic folk hero who goes down in ballads as a hero regardless of the facts. He robs the rich and gives to the poor, we sing. I changed a line to "He took from the 1 and gave to the 99." We need a lot more of that, only in the form of taxation -) The song portrays Jesse as a Robin Hood character. In reality he was something else - a Confederate sympathizer and a killer, but in the song he lives on as a hero. Damn that Robert Ford! Thank you, Billy Gashade!

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ps. I have updated the blog a few below this one - The US is heading for it's own Ukraine-like crisis to provide a link to the most stunning essay I have read in recent memory. It's about violence in America; it's by Chris Hedges and it resonates especially in the light of the US state of Geogia and it's apalling gun law and the anti-government actions of Nevada ranchers to which our government caved in.

The top two blogs on my site are being left as the latest blogs because I've linked them to a Pandora submission of "Pete Seeger Lives Here."

Blue-Tail Fly is an American murder ballad (I mean it...give my version a listen)

As I was preparing my album "Pete Seeger Lives Here" I recognized a great many songs from Pete's book American Favorite Ballads as having been sung by Burl Ives. As I sang them I thought of it as 'bringing out my inner Burl.' However, as I reread Pete's wonderful testimony before Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities and then went on to research Burl Ives' testimony, I decided to stick with the example of Pete. Pete Seeger told Congress, politely but firmly, that his politics and religion were private matters and none of their business. He refused to name names, but offered to sing any song he had ever performed. Burl sang - like a canary. For sure, Burl named John Jacob Niles whose career was trashed. Perhaps he named Will Geer (Grandpa Walton on TV) and many others, including Pete and Woody Guthrie. I know of no transcript of Burl Ives' testimony, but you can find Pete's online. Pete was restrained, polite, and adamant - a real example of bravery and true Americanism.
Once when I was in the Folklife Center at the Library of Congress a wonderful librarian said, "We have Burl Ives' guitar, would you like to play it?" What a fine instrument. I suspect the strings were cat gut. They were not steel and they were more resonant and taut than any nylon strings I've played.
In my memory no non-Christmas song is more reminiscent of Burl than Blue-Tail Fly. I never really got it until I was singing it over and over. Here's my interpretation:
In the days of American slavery, house servants were, owners assumed, more trustworthy than field hands. They didn't have overseers watching their every move. They often were expected to exercise some authority over field hands - for sure they kept them out of the house and the master's liquor! So when Jimmy cracked corn - hell, that must have been bourbon! Why didn't the singer care? Because he had murdered the master! He sent him away forever by being a bit negligent in swatting the dreaded Blue-Tail Fly! And the jury did not convict him. Celebration time for sure!

Pete Seeger Lives Here!

Pete Seeger recorded a series of records beginning in, I believe, the 1950s called American Favorite Ballads. Then in 1961 Oak Publications published a songbook by the same name. I recently recorded 18 of the songs at Elephonics Recording Studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jesse Korman is the owner and engineer of this fine studio and he found Jared Putnam, a superb upright acoustic bass player to accompany me. I will be sharing some of these songs here and telling stories about them as I go.
American Favorite Ballads now available from Oak Archives, Music Sales America, distributed by Hal Leonard Corporation. I'm quite sure one could easily find a copy. ISBN 978-0-8256-0094-4
This wonderful book has been an instructor to me - some songs have chord structures I would never have guessed at, others are wonderfully simple learning songs with two chords. It has been a reminder of my childhood - I used to sing these songs in school. And it has been a comfort to me, something I've returned to over and over through the years.
We play it uptempo. I added some scat singing and repeats for fun.