The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126347   Message #2869511
Posted By: John Minear
22-Mar-10 - 04:58 PM
Thread Name: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Subject: RE: From SF to Sydney - 1853 Shanties Sung?
Gibb (Guest), just because I recognize his name (CP) doesn't mean I ever understood anything he said! But I certainly am no idealist. With James I will only take seriously what is within the realm of experience, and more specifically, the plurality of particulars. But I think I see what you mean. I didn't know they were doing wax impressions back then. It's too bad they all went down with the "Julia Ann"! They could have saved me a lot of trouble! Talk about "lost wax".

Lighter, thanks for that "Shawneetown" verse. In THE SINGIN' GATHRIN', by Jean Thomas and Joseph Leeder, there is a song called "Push Boat", sung by Blanche Preston Jones, Lawrence County, Kentucky in 1911. Thomas and Leeder say,

"This ballad is classed as a "work" song, inasmuch as the men propelling the push boat with their long poles sang as they rowed down the Big Sandy River to its junction with the Ohio River at Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

This ballad was composed and set to tune by her great grandfather, Robert Preston, whose family was among the first settlers in the Big Sandy region of the Kentucky mountains, and for whom the town of Prestonsburg in Floyd County takes its name. Her kinsman, Thomas Jefferson Preston, owned and operated a push boat in the Big Sandy section before the coming of the steamboat. "Old Man Jeffry" refers to him, and Ike is the name of his son." (pp. 18-19). Here are the words (and there is also a tune printed):

"Going up the river,
From Catlettsburg to Pike,
Working on a push boat
For old man Jeffry's Ike.

Working on a push boat
For fifty cents a day;
Buy me girl a brand new dress
And throw the rest away.

Working on a push boat,
Water's mighty slack;
Taking sorghum 'lasses down,
And bringing sugar back.

I wish I had a nickel,
I wish I had a dime;
I'd spend it all on Cynthie Jane
And dress her mighty fine.

The weather's mighty hot, boys,
Blisters on my feet,
Working on a push boat
To buy my bread and meat.

Working on a push boat,
Working in the rain;
When I get to Catlettsburg,
Goodby Cynthie Jane."

And from Jean Thomas' BALLAD MAKIN' IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KENTUCKY (1939), there is this:

"Whereupon, plucking a lively accompaniment on the gourd banjo, Little Robin sang with all the bravado of his sefarin' ancestors: [same song with these additional verses]

Pushing mighty hard, boy,
Sand bar's in the way;
Working like a son-of-a-gun
For mighty scanty pay.

Going down the Big Sandy,
With Pete and Lazy Sam;
When I get to Catlettsburg,
I'll buy myself a dram.

Going down the river,
I live on buffalo,
Lordy, lordy, Cynthie Jane,
Don't I hate to go.

With a lively "Yo ho! Yo ho!" of his own making, Little Robin ended Old Robin's ditty...."(pp. 48-49, with music).

In a letter from Dillon Bustin, who wrote the well-known contemporary version of "Shawneetown", he says, "In terms of sourcs, "Shawneetown" was prompted by a few fragments of lyrics printed in primary documents from the early nineteenth century." And he mentions a book by Leland Baldwin called THE KEELBOAT AGE ON WESTERN WATERS. (early 1940s).