Artist: Martha Schlamme
Author: Paul Stookey/Tracey Batteast/Elena Mezzotti
Label: Vanguard
Year: 1954
Jewish girl from Vienna (born: Martha Haffel) on her lp Folk Songs Of Many Lands, with Tanya Gould on piano. Song about the round cakes baked to give away by so-called 'soulers', poor children trick-or-treating from door to door around All Saints Day/All Souls Day. Every offering represents a soul saved from purgatory. The custom originated in Britain or Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth I (as Heigh-ho, Nobody Home).
Covers:
John Langstaff [as Souling Song]
Peter, Paul & Mary [as A Soalin']
Watersons [as Souling Song on Frost And Fire]
Armstrong Family [as Soul Cake, recorded in the seventies]
Kate Burke & Ruth Hazelton [as A-Soulin']
Sting [idem, following the Peter, Paul & Mary arrangement; first single from If On A Winter's Night]
John Kirkpatrick [as Soul, Soul]
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)