VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH
Created on 04/05/2009Latest update on 08/11/2025
Artist: Len Spencer
Author: Henry Mayhew/James Howe
Label: Columbia
Year: 1900
Cockney parody of a song from short play The Wandering Minstrel, first staged in 1834. Biggest success for Sam Cowell, London's most popular mid 19th century music-hall comedian. Stephen Foster used this same tune in 1858 (for The Great Baby Show). Variations (both melodic and lyrical) seeped in The Nightingale (One Morning In May) and The Bold Grenadier (see there).
Covers:
- 1928:
Harry McClintock [as Sweet Betsy]
- 1931:
Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers [as Sweet Betsy From Pike]
- 1933:
Bradley Kincaid [idem; for Bluebird]
- 1950s:
Eddy Arnold [idem]
- 1955:
Sons Of The Pioneers [idem]
- 1959:
Burl Ives [idem]
- 1959:
Jimmy Driftwood [idem]
- 1962:
Derek Lamb [on Folkways LP She Was Poor But She Was Honest]
- 1964:
Judy Collins [as Sweet Betsy From Pike]
- 1965:
Johnny Cash [as Sweet Betsy From Pike]
- 1965:
Dubliners [as The Old Orange Flute]
- 1991:
Alan Lomax [as The Wild Rippling Water]
- 1992:
Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem [as The Old Orange Flute]
- 1997:
Riders In The Sky [as Sweet Betsy From Pike]
- 2007:
BR5-49 [idem]
Related items
Other originals by artist:
- 1892
- OLD FOLKS AT HOME, THE (WAY DOWN UPON THE SWANEE RIVER)
- 1897
- YOU'VE BEEN A GOOD OLD WAGON (BUT YOU'VE DONE BROKE DOWN)
- 1900
- ARKANSAW TRAVELER
- 1903
- C-H-I-C-K-E-N, DAT'S THE WAY TO SPELL CHICKEN
Covers from artist:
