The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71781   Message #1230135
Posted By: Joe Offer
20-Jul-04 - 04:21 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Little Brown Jug
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bonny little brown jug
The tune is quite different from the American "Little Brown Jug," but I'd guess they're the same song. The Traditional Ballad Index says there are British versions, but cites only American sources. The Ballad Index says it's a composed song by Joseph Eastburn Winner, copyright 1869 - but is the American song derived from something earlier?
-Joe Offer-
Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry:

Little Brown Jug, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer praises drink and the little brown jug it comes in: "Ha, ha, ha, you and me, 'Little brown jug' don't I love thee." Drink has turned his friends into enemies, left him poor and sick, and ruined his prospects -- but still he wants another drop
AUTHOR: Eastburn (Joseph Eastburn Winner)
EARLIEST DATE: 1869
KEYWORDS: drink poverty nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE,So) Britain(England)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 115-118, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune)
Belden, p. 261, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text plus an excerpt from another)
Randolph 408, "The Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune, plus a fragment which may or may not go here)
BrownIII 33, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text plus 6 excerpts)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 176-177, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune, probably composite, since it includes all the original verses plus some floaters)
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 52-53, "The Little Brown Jug" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gilbert, pp. 64-65, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 269, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 236, "Little Brown Jug" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 334-335, "Little Brown Jug"
DT, BROWNJUG*

Roud #725
RECORDINGS:
The Blue Ridge Duo [possibly a pseudonym for George Reneau?] "Little Brown Jug" (Edison 51422, 1924)
Uncle Tom Collins, "Little Brown Jug" (OKeh 45132, 1927)
Vernon Dalhart, "Little Brown Jug" (Perfect 12421, 1928)
Chubby Parker, "Little Brown Jug" (Gennett 6120/Silvertone 25013, 1927) (Conqueror 7893, 1931)
Riley Puckett, "Little Brown Jug" (Columbia 15232-D, 1928)
George Reneau, "Little Brown Jug" (Vocalion 14812, 1924)
Ernest Thompson, "Little Brown Jug" (Columbia 147-D, 1924)
Welby Toomey, "Little Brown Jug" (Gennett 6025/Champion 15198, 1927)
Henry Whitter, "Little Brown Jug" (OKeh 40063, 1924)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Woodpecker's Hole" (tune)
cf. "The Whiskey Seller" (tune)
Notes: Joseph Winner (the brother of Septimus Winner, a.k.a. "Alice Hawthorne") published some twenty pieces in his career under the title Eastburn, but only this one had any commercial success. The title may have come from another song of the same name, but that piece (by George Cooper and W. F. Wellman, Jr.; copyright 1868) fell into instant obscurity. - RBW
File: RJ19115

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2004 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.


Here's the entry from folktrax.org:

LITTLE BROWN JUG - "My wife and I lived all alone" - ROUD#725 - BSs - HAYWOOD #19 p39 (D) m/o (with piano) - WILLIAMS FSUT 1923 p212 #406 Elijah Iles, Inglesham, Wiltsh 5v/ch (w/o) ("Me and my wife we lived in a house") variant words and tune from usual - DAWNEY PG 1977 p28 Francis Jekyll & Geo Butterworth: Mr Smith, Stoke Lacy, Herefordsh, 1907 - see MAUGI CIDRE (Jersey Channel Islands version) --- American song comp by R A Eastburn? - SPAETH: REAW 1926 pp58-59 - HUBBARD BSFU 1961 p244 Mrs Salley Hubbard 1947 & Mrs Caroline Knudsen 1v (w/o), Utah ("If all the folk of Adam's race") - BAYARD DTF 1982 #428 p406 (fiddle tune from Pa) -- Richard AVERY (banjo instrumental) rec by PK, Hogue Bie, Jersey: RTR-0728-50/ Radio prog tape - LEADER LEE- 4045 1975 (M) Lonnie AUSTIN (fid) - cassette of Alys CURTIS from New Zealand rec Dartington