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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)
Artist: Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Author: Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Label: General Phonograph Co
Year: 1924
Folk musician, lawyer and politician from North Carolina. Since 1928 head of the Mountain Dance & Folk Festival in Asheville where standards for Appalachian Folk were set. Blacks were always excluded. According to Dave Van Ronk he was an out-and-out racist who refused the offer to perform at Newport Folk just because people like Pete Seeger were member of the board. Ralph Peer recording. The version on the Anthology Of American Folk Music is his Brunswick recording from 1928.
Covers:
Pete Seeger [as Mole In The Ground]
Roscoe Holcomb [as Baby Let Your Hair Roll Down]
Bob Dylan [line from his Stuck Inside Of Mobile (With The Memphis Blues Again): all the railroad men just drink up your blood like wine]
Shocking Blue [as Rock In The Sea]
Doc & Merle Watson [idem]
Meindert Talma & The Negroes [as Oh Was Ik Maar Een Mol Onder De Grond]
Bob Neuwirth & Eliza Carthy [on The Harry Smith Project - Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited]
The melody reminds the one year older New River Train Song (see there). Both Bascom Lamar and Henry Whitter came from the same region.
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)