Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?

Subject: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 12:10 PM

Greetings, my friends.

I would like some help. I am putting a new band together, and the perennial problem of a good name has come up. I didn't want a folkie title (although Queer As Folk was a good 'un!) as this is a rollocky bollocky pub band, as before drink, it puts some folk off. (After drink, they boil lager in their throats, singing along). Also, I didn't want a pretentious title that sounds like we write our own songs, as that's another mass market turn off. My wife said a jokey name devalues good music, so that killed off "The Sex Slaves From Hull".

Then, in the middle of the night, it came. Maggie's Farm. I remember shuffling around London, on marches in the early 80's, trying to depose Thatcher, bleating the chorus "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no mo'". I've half an idea Lowell George did a version, as well as Dylan, but before I drop a bollock, can anyone tell me the origins of this song, who wrote it, and who has recorded it.

Maggie, by the way, is our band's matriach, sound engineer and SO of 'the voice'.

Skipjack

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Bert
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 12:21 PM

You said it yourself. 'The Rollocky Bollocky Pub Band' would be perfect.

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: MMario
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 12:25 PM

according to goodle, Bob Dylan, who recorded it on at least 5 albums.

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 03:16 PM

How abouit "Maggie's Firm"?

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: okthen
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 03:33 PM

i thought bob dylan wrote maggies farm, as for lowell george it wasn't the same song tho' he did a songabout a farm, will have to dig out the vinyl to give a title.

i 2nd the maggies firm idea

cheers

bill

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 03:38 PM

Wasn't the original Maggie's Farm by Son House? I thought he wrote it after leaving his first wife and the property given to them by her Dad.Dad wanted Son to quit the Blues nonsense and settle down.

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 04:09 PM

There was a radio show here recently on Harry Smith's Anthology. They played a track from it which was obviously the main influence for Bob's later song.

I can't for the life of me remember the title or the artist though?

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 05:11 PM

Sham, we must BOTH have been scratching our heads at the same time. I was listening to Bob's original source just last week (on one of my many blues compilations) and for the life of me I CAN'T REMEMBER IT!

Damn, it's those senior moments that Sandy's always talkin about!

Rick

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: GUEST,Murray MacLeod
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 05:36 PM

Ah Rick, thank god my memory still retains the important things in this case a memory of a televised concert where Dylan did a storming version of Maggie's Farm with the great Mike Bloomfield proving himself the equal of any blues guitarist who ever wielded a Strat. (On this occasion at least he was as good as Buchanan) . If this is available on video, someone tell me, please.

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 07:20 PM

I always thought Bob Dylan wrote it. Don't know if I ever had a specific reason or if it was just an assumption that became fact in my mind over the years.

Rich

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 07:24 PM

Rick I have it on tape and if I can just find out where it has been 'tidied' to, I will put us both out of misery.

If someone does not beat me to it?

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: John Hardly
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 07:37 PM

If Dylan DID'NT write it, then Tim O'Brien is gonna be red-faced as well as red-haired for including it in his Dylan tribute album!---John

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 07:49 PM

Found it!

Down On Penny's Farm by The Bentley Brothers.

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 07:53 PM

Er The Bentley Boys.......

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 12:28 AM

The one I'm thinkin' about Sham is a black singer from the twenties who sings the same type of verses as Bobby's song. Dylan listened to a huge amount of Blues re-issues both in Minnesota and New York and borrowed lots of stuff from them.

John, Dylan certainly did write Maggie's Farm, but he used MANY traditional forms as part of his process. Most of them appear to come from old Folkways albums. The guy's a genius, and he rarely ever credited his sources, but his homage to traditional sources come out strongly in his first fifty or so songs.

Sham, did you ever hear Gid Tanner's "Down on Roberts' Farm"? Seems there were a few like that. I've got the Bentley Brothers' one as well. Great fun eh?

Rick

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 03:05 AM

The Bentley Boys version of "Penny's Farm" is the first cut on the Yazoo re-issue CD titled Hard Times Come Again No More, Volume 1 (Yazoo 2036). Both that and its companion "volume 2" are highly recommended! John Greenway used the "Robert's Farm" version in his American Folksongs of Protest; Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1953 (reprinted by Octagon Books, 1970).

Sandy (working late tonight)

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Stewie
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 03:30 AM

The Bently Boys version of 'Penny's Farm' was first reissued as selection 25 on Vol 1 of Harry Smith's 'Anthology'. Their identities are unknown, but they are thought to be possibly from North Carolina. Evidently, Frank Walker, the producer of their recording session in 1929, couldn't remember anything about them. Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett also recorded it as 'On Tanner's Farm'.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 02:04 PM

Maggie's Firm WHAT???

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 02:05 PM

No offense intended to Maggie, your matriarch, in my last post.

Subject: RE: Help: Maggie's Farm - Origin?
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 13 Oct 00 - 07:24 AM

Maggie is firm, is firm and it's her firm!

Subject: Little Known Fact About Maggie's Farm
From: GUEST,Tom Dowling
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 10:55 PM

Here is what I believe to be a previously un-recorded fact about the origins of "Maggies Farm". In 1963 through 1965 if you took the Trailways bus to Kingston New York and the proceeded out by car toward Woodstock, a town in which Dylan hung out a lot, you could not help but see a large roadside sign for Magliore's Farm. I always believed that Dylan shortened "Magliore's" to Maggie's" The sign was prominent and could not be missed if you were coming up from the City.

But, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Tom D.