NIGHTINGALE, THE
Created on 08/08/2006Latest update on 21/03/2024
Artist: Duncan Bell
Author: traditional
Label: wax cylinder
Year: 1927
One of five cylinder recordings, two probably by Bell, three by an unnamed Summer School Singer from the James Madison Carpenter Collection, archived in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Alternative title: Hear The Nightingale Song. Lyrics introduced in a more than 300 year old Broadside ballad first published as The Nightingale's Song, where a grenadier (or Soldier) meets a pretty girl (Lady) on a beautiful day, explaining the alternative titles The Bold Grenadier and One Morning In May, like in the first lyric line. Ralph Vaughan Williams collected a version as The Dragoon And The Lady from a Mr. Gorman from Surrey in 1903 and in 1905 from a Mr. Carter from Norfolk. Around that same period (between 1903 and 1916) Henry Marvin Belden collected different versions in Missouri, both as The Nightingale and One Morning In May, while Cecil Sharp collected nine versions in Somerset between 1904 and 1907 (as The (Bold) Grenadier, The Soldier And The Lady and As I Was Walking One Morning In May). In 1917 in Tennessee and Kentucky Cecil and Maud Karpeles found another eight versions, all as The Nightingale and published those in 1932 in English Folk Songs From Southern Appalachia Vol 2. As One Morning In May it appeared in Carl Sandburg's American Songbag in 1927.
Covers:
- 1934:
Alec Moore [as The Wild Rippling Water; John A. Lomax recording in Austin, TX for the L.o.C.]
- 1935:
Lulu Belle & Scotty [as One Morning In May, also recorded by John A. Lomax, using a slightly different tune; see also: 1913 Massacre]
- 1937:
Bill Cox [with Cliff Hobbs as The Fiddling Soldier for Melotone]
- 1938:
Marvin E. Thornton [as The Soldier And The Lady, Alan Lomax recording from Ohio]
- 1938:
Coon Creek Girls [idem on Vocalion]
- 1939:
Mrs. G.A. Griffin [as The Walls Of Jericho; John A. Lomax recording for the L.o.C.]
- 1941:
John Jacob Niles [as One Morning In May (The Nightingale) for RCA]
- 1945:
Woody Guthrie [same tune as Aunt Mollie Jackson's in One Morning In May and of both Marvin E. Thornton and The Coon Creek Girls in The Soldier And The Lady in 1913 Massacre, which deserves its own entry (see there)]
- 1947:
Jo Stafford [for Capitol on lp American Folk Songs; see also: The Patriot Game]
- 1952:
Jean Ritchie [as One Morning In May, two versions]
- 1956:
Burl Ives [as Hear A Nightingale Sing]
- 1958:
Alan Lomax [as The Wild Rippling Water]
- 1959:
Neil Morris [as The Irish Soldier And The English Lady (The Nightingale Song); Lomax recording]
- 1959:
Dominic Behan [tune of Jo Stafford's version in The Patriot Game, which has its own entry; see there]
- 1963:
Bill Keith & Jim Rooney [as One Morning In May for Prestige with own tune]
- 1963:
Ian Campbell Folk Group [as To Hear The Nightingale Sing]
- 1964:
Bob Dylan [as With God On Our Side; follows Jo Stafford's '47 tune]
- 1964:
Betty Garland [for Folkways; claims her family brought the song from England to the new world in 1637]
- 1964:
- 1964:
Judy Collins [as Wild Rippling Water; see also 1913 Massacre]
- 1965:
- 1965:
New Lost City Ramblers [as The Soldier And The Lady]
- 1967:
Isla Cameron [idem in film Far From The Madding Crowd]
- 1972:
James Taylor [with Linda Ronstadt as One Morning In May, crediting his Boston buddies Keith & Rooney]
- 1998:
- 2010:
Tune also used in Woody Guthrie's 1913 Massacre (see there) and consequently in Bob Dylan's Song To Woody. Hoagy Carmichael's One Morning In May ('33) is a different song; See also: St. James Infirmary.
