Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 22 - 09:16 PM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: GUEST,cat yronwode
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 04:44 AM

"A burning porridge" may be one with brandy ignited atop it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: Roberto
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 02:25 AM

Thank you all very much. I didn't expect so good a work done in so little time. Thanks again. Roberto

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 08:06 PM

And of course, that should be huntin' horn to be consistent    with the rest!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 08:01 PM

Q, I didn't think to say it, but Judy's source may well have been Ollie Gilbert, and of course, she knew thousands of songs, so who knows where she might have gotten it? Like I said, I'll ask around.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 07:59 PM

White chocolate tea appears in "Lou Bonnie" in the Max Hunter Folk Song collection (Ollie Gilbert, 1971, with audio.

A bird an' a parrot you shall receive
An' a cup white chocolate tea.

Lou Bonnie
Loving Henry and Henry Lee are other variants at Max Hunter.

Rooibos offers white chocolate tea in their catalogue. Britannia House in England will sell you a teapot complete with white chocolate tea (at a goodly price!).

Subject: Lyr Add: LOWE BONNIE (from the Klemmedsons)
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 07:58 PM

Malcolm, the record number you gave is the same in the discography of the Bear Family box set. Since there is the obvious cake/tea error, there well may be more errors in their transcription. Sorry to say it, but my CD is misplaced at the moment, with no time to look for it right now, so I can't check for myself.

I do have an LP recorded locally in 1972, just before the Folk Center opened which contains a version very close to Tarlton's. As luck would have it, I was talking to the person who recorded it just Friday, but of course, didn't know I should be asking her about this! I have no idea of her source, but will try to find out.

Anyway, just to muddy the waters a bit, here is her version. It is very clearly enunciated, so it gave me no trouble. I like it better than either of the above. Of course, it was the very first one I ever heard, years before I heard Jimmie Tarlton's, so that may have something to do with my preference. I capitalized the differences, but ignored the few places where a word was dropped. Mostly they were not significant.

As sung by the Klemmedsons, Rackensack Volume II, 1972

Lowe Bonnie, Lowe Bonnie, was a huntin' young man
And a-huntin' he did ride
With his hunting horn SWUNG around his neck
And A broadsword AT his side

He hunted 'til he came to his OWN true love
In a lightnin' he tangled at THE reins
AND NONE SO WILLIN' AS his OWN true love
To RISE and say, "Call in!"

"Call in, call in, Lowe Bonnie," she SAID
"And stay all night with me
A burning PORRIDGE you shall receive
And a CUP OF white chocolate TEA."
SAID, "I will COME in and I will SIT down
But I haven't BUT a moment to stay
There's one little girl in THE whole round town
I love FAR better than thee."

While he was sitting all on her lap
AND kissing her so sweet
WITH A little pen knife DRAWN keen and sharp
She wounded him so deep

"Don't die, don't die, Lowe Bonnie," she SAID
"Don't die, don't die so soon
I sent for the doctors in the whole round town
FOR one WHO COULD heal your wound."

'How can I live, how can I live
You've wounded me so deep
AND I think I feel my own heart's blood
A-droppin' DOWN on my feet."

Subject: Tune Add: LOWE BONNIE / YOUNG HUNTING
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 06:51 PM

Here is Tarlton's tune, as quoted by Bronson. Presumably it is the "substitute" melody mentioned earlier? Bronson doesn't set text to tune, so the arrangement here is conjectural, but pretty close I'd think; the only question being whether it was "he" or "did" that slurs.

X:1
T:Lowe Bonnie
T:Young Hunting
S:Jimmie Tarlton
B:Bronson II, 68.43, p 82
N:Columbia rec., No. 15763-D (151002)
N:Child 68 Roud 48
N:I/M (inflected II)
L:1/8
Q:1/4=100
M:3/4
K:C
G2|B2 B2 B2|^A2 A2 AA|B B3 B2|B4 BB|
w:Lowe Bon-nie, Lowe Bon-nie was a hunt-ing young man An' a-
d4 d2|c2 d2 e2|d6-|d4 dd|
w:hunt-ing he_ did ride_ With his
g4 g2|"(a)" e4 cc|e2 d4|G4 DD|
w:hunt-ing horn slung a-round his neck An' his
B4 c2|B4 A2|G6-|G4|]
w:broad-sword by his side._
"(a: variant)" e2 c2 e2||

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 06:20 PM

The two cases being both American sets of the 1930s, my guess would be that you've solved the problem for that reading. I'd never heard of chocolate tea, and evidently Belden hadn't either!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 06:07 PM

White chocolate tea is seldom drunk now, but cocoa butter, sugar, milk and vanilla ("white chocolate") mixed with hot tea was once popular. It is being revived by some health nuts who think "white chocolate" lacks the "bad effects" of sugar.

Doubtful is white tea (quite expensive), sold by better tea purveyors. This tea is composed of the white, silvery downy buds plus the tightly whorled leaves that have not yet turned green. Some of the "organic" people consider it has beneficial medicinal properties.

Powdered Chalk was once used as a medicine for stomach disorders.

These ideas may be wrong as far as the ballad verse is concerned- they are guesses at the meaning based on actual recipes.

I won't guess at the "burning forfeit."

Subject: Lyr Add: LOWE BONNIE (from Jimmie Tarlton)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 05:38 PM

There are obviously some textual difficulties in places here. Did either compilation indicate the catalogue number or date of the original record(s)? We may be dealing with more than one recording, for all we know at the moment. Discographical information is always very important if available, so that we can be confident that we are talking about the same thing.

The transcription in Bronson differs in various particulars; in the circumstances I had better quote the whole of it.

LOWE BONNIE

Sung by Jimmie Tarlton, Columbia rec., No. 15763-D (151002).

Lowe Bonnie, Lowe Bonnie was a hunting young man
An' a-hunting he did ride
With his hunting horn slung around his neck
An' his broadsword by his side.

He hunted till he came to his own true love
An' a-lightly he tingled at his ring
No one was so ready but his old true love
To rise and say, Call in.

Call in, call in, Lowe Bonnie, she cried
An' stay all night with me
A burning (?) forfeit* you shall receive     *[bowl of porridge?]
An' a drink o' white chocolate(?) tea.

Yes I will come in, and I will sit down
But I haven't got a moment to stay
There's one more girl in this whole round town
That I love better than thee.

O it's while he was sitting all on her lap
He was kissing her so sweet
A little pen knife was so keen and sharp
She wounded him so deep.

Don't die, don't die, Lowe Bonnie, she cried
Don't die, don't die so soon
I'll send for the doctors in the whole round town
Some one can heal your wound.

How can I live, how can I live
You've wounded me so deep
I think I feel my own heart's blood
A-dropping o'er my feet.


That "white chocolate tea" business also comes up in Bronson 68.9, a set sung by James York, Olin, Iredell County, N.C., in 1939 (Schinhan, Music, Brown Collection, IV, 1957, p 29; text, Belden and Hudson, Folk Ballads, Brown Collection, II, 1952, p 67):

Come in , come in, Lord Bonnie, she cried,
And stay the night with me.
A rounding* fire you shall have
And a cup of white chalk tea.

*Belden commented: "One supposes that this should be 'rousing'. But what is white chalk tea?"

The two versions are quite close textually, though Mr York's is longer.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 04:27 PM

This is a transcript from the Ed Kahn notes to The Complete Recordings of Darby & Tarlton, Bear Family BCD 15764 CI. Jimmie recorded it without his usual partner, Tom Darby, on December 3, 1930. (They frequently didn't get along and tried solos and recordings with other partners, but with somewhat less success, I think) The lyrics are also from the notes. I didn't check them against my own hearing, but I seem to remember it as TEA instead of cake, just as Roberto gave above.

This is one of the oldest songs in Jimmie's repertoire, having its roots in an old English ballad commonly known as Young Hunting (Child #68). While Jimmie's version is much abbreviated from some of the longer texts that have been collected on both sides of the Atlantic, it is one of only two versions to have been recorded by hillbilly artists. Jimmie learned this ballad from his mother, Daisy, who learned it from her grandmother. Daisy died in 1917, so Jimmie believes that his version of the ballad goes back several hundred years. While the text is old, Jimmie chose not to use the tune he got from his mother for this recording. He told Norm Cohen that he did not want Tom (Darby) to learn the real tune. Instead, he borrowed the tune from The Drunkard's Dream.

In later years, he began to sing the original tune again, feeling that it was more beautiful than the one he had used for his Columbia recording.

Lowe Bonnie, Lowe Bonnie, was a hunting young man
And a-hunting he did ride
With his hunting horn slung around his neck
And his broadsword by his side

He hunted 'til he came to his old true love
In a lightning he tangled at his reins
No one was ready but his old true love
To lay right and say, "Call in!"

"Call in, call in, Lowe Bonnie," she cried
"And stay all night with me
A burning fire which you shall receive
And a drink a' white chocolate cake."
Says, "I will call in and I will set down
But I haven't got a moment to stay
There's one little girl in this whole round town
That I love better than thee-ee."

Oh, it's while he was sitting all on her lap
He was kissing her so sweet
A little pen knife was so keen and sharp

She wounded him so deep

"Don't die, don't die, Lowe Bonnie," she cried
"Don't die, don't die so soon
I sent for the doctors in the whole round town
No one can heal your wound."

'How can I live, how can I live
You've wounded me so deep
I think I feel my own heart's blood
A-dropping on my feet."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 01:08 PM

There is a full transcription (though with queries in verse 3) in Bronson II, 68.43, p 82.

Subject: Lyr Req: jimmie tarlton's lowe bonnie (child #68)
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 12:59 PM

Many problems with this version. I can't get too many words and entire verses. I know it from the anthology "Man of Constant Sorrow amd other timeless mountain ballads, classic recordings of the 1920's and 30's", Yazoo 3001. Please, help! Thanks. Roberto

Lowe Bonnie, Lowe Bonnie, was a hunting young man
And a-hunting he did ride
With his hunting horn slung around his back
And his broad sword by his side

He hunted till he came to his old true love
….. he tangled at his way (???????????)
No one was so ready but his old true love
To rise (?) and say - Call in

Call in, call, Lowe Bonnie – she cried
And stay all night with me
A burning (?) ..... you shall receive
And a drink of ..... tea (?)

Says – I will call in and I will sit down
But I haven't but a moment to stay
There's one more (?) girl in this whole round town
That I love better than thee

Oh it's while he was sitting all on her lap (?)
He was kissing her so sweet
Her (or "a"?) little penknife was so keen and sharp,
She wounded him so deep

Don't die, don't die, Lowe Bonnie – she cried
Don't die, don't die so soon
I'll send for the doctors in the whole round town
For one can heal your wound

How can live, how can I live
You've wounded me so deep?
I think I feel my own heart's blood
A-dropping on my feet