The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #87026 Message #3240993
Posted By: Mick Pearce (MCP)
18-Oct-11 - 06:49 PM
Thread Name: Barbara Allen earliest version?
Subject: RE: Barbara Allen earliest version?
While on the subject, there's a 48 page booklet by Charles Seeger: Versions and Variants of Barbara Allen, written to accomapny a Library of Congress record: Versions and Variants of Barbara Allen. He analyses the tunes for the song and the performances. There's a lot of information there on the tunes. You can download the pdf - link about half-way down the page. You can also download the songs (about 36Mb, link just after the pdf link). There are 30 versions; they vary in length from about 20 secs to 6 mins
He cites the Oswald tune as the first association of that tune variant with Barbara Allen.