Hi everybody, Ken Schatz here. My good friend Dan asked me if I knew this particular recording, but I'm stumped, and it looks like a perfect Mudcat puzzle. Can anyone identify the album he describes? Thanks!


Dan says:

...It is becoming an obsession of mine to identify and track down a tape recording of an album for my youth.  It is a seminal influence, but probably the only folk music tape I've ever owned. That said I listend to it repeatedly between the ages of 2 and 16. It was a dub so there was no proper labeling or cover art, but I know you like a challenge. So... any help in identifying names of songs from the following fragements would delay my going mad by at least several weeks. If you recognize a pattern of the songs as cohereing into a whole such as "the infamous "Parker Brothers Family Christmas Album"" that would be a bonus, but probably impossible.
 
Recorded probably between 1971 and 1975. Presumably commercially available due to sound quality.  male and female voices. Maybe four or five members. Mouth harp, possible bucket bass, old-school sounding. I imagine in my mind's eye that the participants had beards, but this may only be a flight of youthful fancy. I can hum portions of these if it would be helpful.
 
Clues...
 
1. (chorus, quaker melody)'Tis a Gift To Be Simple, "Tis a gift to be true.
 
2. (chorus = "...down by the water a rolling, a rolling.... (some sad song about some lovers meeting and drowning female lead vocal, male chorus)"
 
3. Three men-a shall mow my meadow...5 men, 4 men, 3 men, 2men and 1 more, shall shear my ewes and rams and lambs and gather it all together...." (presumably based on a psalm or biblical passage)
 
4. Everytime I go downtown, someone kicks my dog around, makes no difference if he's a hound, they gotta quit kickin' my dog around...
 
 Please let me know if any of these strike a bell. I will dig for the original tape once again at my folks but it seems consigned to the bookcase of history....