CAN I SLEEP IN YOUR BARN TONIGHT MISTER

Created on 12/01/2009
Latest update on 18/07/2023

Artist: Charlie Poole
Author: traditional
Label: Columbia
Year: 1925

B-side of Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues (see there). Oldest recording with this familiar tune, but no further resemblance with Red River Valley, known in many text variations depending the region: Bright Sherman Valley, Bright Laurel Valley, Bright Mohawk Valley, etc. Lyrics first published as Bright Mohawk Valley by James Kerrigan (ca. 1896). Tune probably older.

Covers:

1925:

Carl T. Sprague [early singing cowboy as Cowboy Love Song (Columbia); sings about his "bright little valley"]

1925:

Bascom & Blackwell Lunsford [as Sherman Valley; Bascom Lamar Lunsford and his brother]

1926:

Kelly Harrell [as Bright Sherman Valley]

1927:

Hugh Cross & Riley Puckett [the first Red River Valley; B-side of Don't Let Your Deal Go Down]

1927:

Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner [as Bright Sherman Valley]

1927:

Ernest V. Stoneman [idem]

1927:

Riley Puckett [idem]

1932:

David Gauthier [as Bright Mohawk Valley]

1932:

Knight Sisters [idem]

1940:

Texas Jim Robertson [as Red River Valley]

1940:

Henry Fonda & Jane Darnell [idem]

1944:

Woody Guthrie [idem; in the late thirties also as Jarama Valley, scene of a massacre among antifascists during the Spanish Civil War; Ernst Busch (as In dem Tal dort am Rio Jarama), Hedy West and Wolf Biermann also cut a version]

1944:

Tom Glazer [as Jarama Valley, on Songs Of The Lincoln Brigade, reissued on Songs Of The Spanish Civil War (Smithsonian Folkways)]

1945:

Jimmy Wakely [as Red River Valley]

1946:

Gene Autry [idem]

1947:

Sons Of The Pioneers [idem]

1947:

Bill Haley [idem]

1948:

Jo Stafford [idem]

1950:

Bobbejaan Schoepen [as Ons Lief Dorpje; with 3 Morgan Zusjes]

1959:

Hank Thompson [as May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister]

1959:

Johnny & The Hurricanes [as Red River Rock]

1959:

Peter Schilperoort [of Dutch Swing College Band fame]

1973:

Jeannie Seely [as Can I Sleep In Your Arms; top 10 C&W, crediting Hank Cochran]

1975:

Willie Nelson [idem on Red Headed Stranger]

1977:

Marty Robbins [idem]

1985:

Boxcar Willie [as Red River Valley]

1998:

George Strait [in film The Horse Whisperer]

2006:

Cassandra Wilson [as Red River Valley]

2006:

Garrison Keillor & Jearlyn Steele [in Robert Altman film A Prairie Home Companion]

2018:

Johnny Dowd [as Red River Valley]

2019:

NRBQ [as Red River Rock]

2019:

Bill Frisell [idem]

2020:

Kronos Quartet [as Jarama Valley]

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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