Canaller's Songbook author visit

Subject: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: GUEST,dave ruch
Date: 09 Jul 03 - 10:29 AM

I just had a very pleasant visit yesterday with Dr. Bill Hullfish, author of the books "The Canaller's Songbook" and "Songs of the Horse-Ocean Sailor". Dr. Hullfish lives in Brockport NY, just an hour from my home in Buffalo, and I found him to be just a delight to talk with about canal songs, his song collecting and compiling efforts, etc. He is a wealth of information, having travelled to canal towns not only in NY State (Erie Canal, D & H Canal & various connectors) but also in NJ, PA, etc as well as in Europe. I was able to "pick his brain" about why he uses certain tunes for certain texts, where some of his songs have come from, etc. Highly recommended!

Feel free to contact me directly at [e-mail] if you'd like to be put in touch with him.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BULLHEAD BOAT (from Art Thieme)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 09:08 PM

That is a fine book. I live on the Illinois-Michigan Canal in Illinois. It connects Lake Michigan with the Illinois River and runs 100 miles from LaSalle, IL to Chicago. One of my favorite canal songs is THE BULLHEAD BOAT which I learned from Lyman King of Fulton, New York. I recorded it on my album on Folk Legacy Records called ON THE WILDERNESS ROAD---now available from them on CD.

I was sleepin' in a line barn eating beans and hay,
The boss kicked my stern every night and every day,
I hired out canallin' as a horny hand of toil,
Driving mules that kept a-squallin' along the towpaths smelly soil.

Well, my feet raised corns and blisters and the mules they raised a stink,
They roped my feet and threw me, plunk, in the smelly drink,
I thought I'd quit canallin' and the boss he thought so too,
Said, "Try your hand at digging up ore---Go row your own canoe."

I was drying on the towpath watching boats go up and down,
Ahivering from the first good bath I'd had since I hit town,
A boat pulled into the basin, to the wood dock for the night,
And I lost no time to hasten 'round the bridge to bum a bite.

They filled me up with beans and shoat and lighted me up a cob,
Asked if I could steer a boat and they offered me a job,
Next morning I was hoisted up to the cabin's roof,
By the tiller there I roosted and I watched that driver hoof.

Now, the boat she was a bullhead boat--decked up to the cabin's top,
And many a canaller now are dead who had no time to drop,
When the captain he forgot to yell, "Low bridge---duck her down !"
The bullhead steersman went to hell with a bridge bash in his crown.

We were loaded up with Star Brand Salt and the Cap was loaded too,
Now, I cannot say that was his fault 'cause what's a man to do?
The bridge was only a heave away when I saw her 'round the bend,
To the Cap a word I couldn't say while tumblin' end o'er end.

So, canallers take my warning and never steer a bullhead boat,
They'll find you some sad morning in the old canal afloat,
Do all your navigating in a line barn filled with hay,
And the bridge you won't be hating, and you'll live ;til judgment day.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: GUEST,dave ruch
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 09:57 PM

Wow - Art, where/when did you meet Lyman King? Bill Hullfish told me a story about a concert tour that he received funding for, where he was asked to perform canal songs up & down the length of the Erie Canal some years back. He was doing a show in the Oswego County area, and one of the songs he did was a text he had gathered from Lionel Wyld set to a tune of Hullfish's choosing (he could not find a more accurate tune for this particular text). A stranger came up after the show and said "hey, I really enjoyed the concert, however, you've got the wrong tune for that one song". The stranger went on to sing the "correct" version of the song, and Hullfish pulled out a tape recorder and captured it along with a few others from this old canawlers memory. That stranger was Lyman King of Fulton NY.

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: Padre
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 10:05 PM

And a great song it is. I live near the end of the ill-fated James River and Kanawha Canal, which was planned to go from Richmond all the way to the Kanawha river near Charleston. It never got beyond Eagle Rock.

There is a good book on the subject, titled: Cabell's Canal: The Story of the James River and Kanawha Canal by Langhorne Gibson.
It can be ordered from:

The Commodore Press
1318 Loch Lomond Lane
Richmond, Virginia 23221
Tel. [phone]
Fax. [phone]
E-mail. [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Jul 03 - 10:46 PM

Dave,

As far as I know Lyman and Carolyn King are still in Fulton, N. Y. but not in their grand old log house on Grandby Road these days. Lyman has been ill on and off so they went to an apartment in town. I'm sure you can find him easily. I met him (and recorded him) when I was on staff at PINEWOODS FOLK CAMP back a couple of decades. I did a few house concerts for Mr. King over the years and it was always grand to pull in and stay with them out on the old folk road. --- You've got me feeling guilty as heck for not being in better touch wih him lately. I think I'll give him a buzz right now.

I think it may have been from Lyman King that I learned that the old Erie-Lakawanna Railroad was locally sometimes called the STRANGE-ABSENSE-OF-DESIRE RAILROAD. ;-)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 11 Jul 03 - 05:50 AM

If Bill Hullfish is interested, I could put him in touch with a mate of mine Dave Blagrove who is quite an authority on English canal songs.
Until recently Dave had (and worked) a pair of traditional narrowboats (Motor and Butty). He still lives alongside the Grand Union Canal at Stoke Bruerne, just south of Blissworth Tunnel (1.75 miles long)

He's written quite a lot of songs himself - most of them funny, but there is the odd serious one.

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: GUEST,dave ruch
Date: 11 Jul 03 - 09:13 AM

Art,

Do you still have those recordings you made of Lyman King? Do you remember what songs he sang? Do you enjoy making copies of field recordings for keenly interested individuals such as myself ;)

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: GUEST,dave ruch
Date: 11 Jul 03 - 09:14 AM

Dave B,

I will pass along your info to Bill Hullfish - thanks!

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Jul 03 - 11:35 PM

I'd need to search for the two I managed to save when the cassette self destructed. As I recall it I am pretty sure I have "Black Rock Pork" and "Boating On The Bullhead"---maybe a couple others.

Send a P.M. and we can talk.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Canaller's Songbook author visit
From: GUEST,dave ruch
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 11:54 AM

Art, I cant PM you as I dont know how to get your email address from this site...mine is [e-mail], so if you wouldnt mind PM-ing me first, we can start it that way.

As fate would have it, I'm off to Fulton NY today! To play at a Canal Heritage Festival! Maybe I'll even bump into old Lyman King myself!

Look forward to hearing from you.