Artist: Eliza Pace
Author: traditional
Label: L.o.C.
Year: 1937
Lomax recording in Hyden, KY as Handsome Mary The Lily Of The West. Roud #957. Also popular as Lakes Of Pontchartrain in America. This melody belongs to all English-spoken traditions: ballad sheets were found in England since the 1850s, when many Irish had left their homeland due to the Famine, leaving a loved one behind.
Covers:
Frances Perry [as The Lakes Of Ponchartrain; Helene Stratman-Thomas recording in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, the length of the whole Mississippi river away from the actual Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana]
Josef Locke [as Where The Blarney Roses Grow; Blarney as pars pro toto for Ireland]
Peter, Paul & Mary [as Flora]
Marie LaforĂȘt [idem]
Bojoura [as Flora, with Thijs van Leer]
Planxty [as Lakes Of Pontchartrain; vocal: Christy Moore, who learned it from Martin Carthy (just like Bob Dylan probably)]
Paul Brady [idem on his album Welcome Here Kind Stranger (named after a line in the song) and in 2001 as Bruach Loch Pontchartrain]
Christy Moore [idem]
Hothouse Flowers [idem]
Peter Case [idem]
Chieftains [with Mark Knopfler (set in Ireland); in '03 with Rosanne Cash (set in America)]
Willy DeVille [as The Banks Of The Pontchartrain]
Martin Simpson [as The Lakes Of Pontchartrain]
This melody reached the borders of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana in the slipstream of millions of Irish migrants to the US. Mid 19th century, Irish who'd left the island outnumbered those that stayed behind. Not to be confused with Nanci Griffith's Banks Of The Pontchartrain.
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)