The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #19743 Message #3251629
Posted By: Joe Offer
06-Nov-11 - 05:40 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: The Ballad of Aimee McPherson
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Ballad of Aimee McPherson
As I said above, there's a recording on the Columbia Pete Seeger collection called Links in the Chain, recorded in 1961 and released on an album called "Story Songs." Seeger credits the song to J. Lomax, Jr., but the album I have gives no further background information.
If a Pete Seeger album doesn't attribute the song to Pete Seeger, it's highly doubtful that Seeger wrote it. The Great Song Thesaurus (Oxford University Press) says "Minnie the Moocher" or "The Ho De Ho Song" was written in 1931 by Cab Calloway, Irving Mills, and Clarence Gaskill. Calloway's is the seminal recording of this song, and the Thesaurus says the song is Calloway's theme song. It's based on a traditional folk song, "Willie the Weeper."
Seeger makes no mention of the Sister Aimee song in his Incompleat Folksinger or his Where Have All the Flowers Gone songbook.
-Joe-