Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)

Subject: road to mandalay: musical setting
From: John Gunnell
Date: 15 Jan 97 - 12:19 PM

I am trying to find a musical setting for Kipling's Road to Mandalay. I have heard Michael Cooney sing it.

Subject: RE: road to mandalay: musical setting
From: Bill Day
Date: 15 Jan 97 - 08:42 PM

The one to hear is Peter Bellamy. "The Barrack-Room Ballads" Innisfree-Green Linnet sif-1002...not sure where to find it..maybe someone knows if it's on CD or tape...mine is the LP....(tremendous rendition!!)Micheal Cooney probably learned that version...

Subject: RE: road to mandalay: musical setting
From:
Date: 20 Jan 97 - 09:14 AM

I've heard two versions. One was very popular in the 30's and 40's and I think that's the Peter Bellamy version. John Roberts and Tony Barrand do a different version, also very nice. The one that was popular was done a lot by opera singers when they did club dates and radio shows.

Subject: RE: road to mandalay: musical setting
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Jan 97 - 01:11 AM

Hi- Just to keep the record straight (has anyone tried to play a straight record?) Roberts and Barrand sing Peter Bellamy's version (which is a derivation of an Irish tune called Ten Thousand Miles Away).

Subject: RE: road to mandalay: musical setting
From: Dick Wisan
Date: 04 Feb 97 - 11:16 PM

The only version I've actually heard was the one sung by people like Nelson Eddy along about the late thirties, early 40's. Dunno if Eddy actually did sing it, but it was always his kind of voice.

On the other hand, I've become fond of crooning it to the tune of "In the evening, by the moonlight". Takes the ginger out.

Subject: Tony Barrand On the Road toMandalay
From: Elmore
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 07:39 PM

Haven't seen Tony Barrand performing for quite some time. So, it was a real pleasure to see Roberts and Barrand doing The Road To Mandalay on YouTube fairly recently with Tony singing lead. I still don't do blue thingamajigs, but it's worth checking out, and easy to find.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 07:54 PM

Hi, Elmore - hope you don't mind that I moved you over here.

Here's a live 2018 performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw9cJwrktn8

I've seen John and Tony perform only one song together, at Sandy Paton's memorial service. It would be a great pleasure to see an entire John & Tony concert.

Here's the studio recording I've loved for years, from their 1997 album titled Naulakha Redux: Songs of Rudyard Kipling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UamJCjfcak

It sure is a pleasure to see the live performance.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 22 Dec 18 - 08:09 PM

Peter Dawson's version must be the original, Dawson almost a contemporary of Kipling (Dawson 1882-1961, compared with Kipling's 1865-1936). And definitely the version (or at least the chorus) that everyone is familiar with.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Elmore
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 01:08 AM

Joe: I'm glad you moved me, and supplied the clicky.{sp?}.Thanks.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 02:11 AM

Just browsing through, as it is one of my favourite Bellamy interpretations, and spotted what could be a mistake. I may be wrong but I thought 10,000 miles away was an English song rather than Irish. Can anyone confirm or otherwise?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 09:36 AM

Wasn't the composer's last name "Speaks" of all things?
O. Speaks, or something.
That would be the version favored by Nelson Eddy and his 'ilk.'

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: DaveRo
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 11:13 AM

Oley Speaks wrote a version, published in 1907.

Bellamy said in an interview: "We know that [Kipling] had specific tunes in mind when he wrote [the poems] but he never let on what they were." This could be an exception, of course.

There's a reference here to it having been written to a popular waltze tune.

Kipling himslef referred to it as a 'song' - though that was some time after it had become a song, I think.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 11:34 AM

Dave, I think it's considered Irish because the Clancy Brothers sang it. It's English. Like the Wild Rover.
Opinion: the Bellamy tune is head and shoulders above the other. Jeff Warner sings that as well.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: DaveRo
Date: 23 Dec 18 - 11:38 AM

The link on the Kipling Society's page to Brian Mattinson's list of twenty-two musical settings of the poem should go here:
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/settings1.htm

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 07:46 AM

Peter Dawson's recording, though something of an icon, is a travesty of Kipling's poem, reducing it to a sentimental, jingoistic Music Hall novelty number. Read the original words -- they won't fit onto the Dawson version. I sing it to the same tune as Waltzing Matilda (can't remember the name), with a change to the rhythm, and it works very well as a 'proper' love song.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 08:03 AM

Thanks Jeri. Not heard that one. Have you heard the Bellowhead version? It is very good but I suspect too 'fussy' for some.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Dec 18 - 10:52 AM

Here's a link to several of the published sheet music versions of The Road To Mandalay at Levy (ignore 1st one - different song; searching on Road to Mandalay doesn't get them all!).

It includes the Oley Speaks version, which was the tune I always heard in younger days, and which I still prefer to Peter Bellamy's!

Mick

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 25 Dec 18 - 12:01 PM

I, too, prefer the Peter Bellamy setting for this song. And my absolute favorite recording (or sitting 'round the table with us at a Press Room session) is Jeff Warner's.

Linn

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Brian Peters
Date: 25 Dec 18 - 04:17 PM

'10,000 Miles Away' (tune borrowed by Bellamy for 'Mandalay') is not only English, it has a known author from Lancashire. See here.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 18 - 05:18 AM

Thanks, Brian. Much appreciated :-)