Name the trad LP that is Dylan source

Subject: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Barbara
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 02:11 AM

The Dylan record: Freewheeling, maybe one before or after.
Source songs are UK traditional or composed and include
The Leaving Of Liverpool
Lady Franklin's Lament
The Patriot Game
Bedlam, I think
Westron Winde

There are more, and I used to have a tape of the source record; it was a man and woman, I believe married, and simple straightforward singing. Never heard of them before or since, but I would love to track it down again. Probably from the late 50s or early 60s.
Can anyone help?
Thanks,
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 01:35 PM

Dylan's rewrite of "Leaving of Liverpool" is entitled either "Farewell" or "Restless Farewell." (He used one title for his version of "Liverpool" and the other for a rewritten "Parting Glass.") The Digital Tradition has this Dylan song listed under "Leaving of Liverpool (new version)" or something very similar.

Dylan used the melody of "The Patriot Game" for "With God On Our Side." "Patriot Game" is not really a traditional song ~ the lyric was written in the 20th century by Dominick Behan, brother of Brendan, and put to an existing (and presumably traditional) melody. So, in this case, Bob didn't "steal" anything that Behan (and probably others over the years) had already "stolen" (that is, used).

I'm not familiar with the other three titles mentioned above, and am curious as to which Dylan songs were based on them.

Sorry I don't have the desired answers, just a couple of related facts and some more questions... ;^)

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Peace
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 01:37 PM

Dylan released (with Columbia) the record "Bob Dylan" before 'Freewheelin''

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Peace
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 01:44 PM

Dylan songs with traditional influences.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: oldhippie
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 01:58 PM

Try link below to search, Barbara, although I don't see a source recording that fits. I was thinking Richard & Mimi Farina, but they didn't record the songs you mention.

http://www.ibiblio.org/keefer/index.htm

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 02:00 PM

Poppagator - that would be Bob Dylan's Dream that uses the tune of Lady Franklin's Lament.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Folkiedave
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 02:47 PM

Probably the most important influence on Dylan (IMHO(, as it was on many other American singers, was Harry Smith's Anthlogy.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Jun 08 - 07:19 PM

I always thought that Dylan got his sources directly, either from Martin Carthy (Lord Franklin and Scarborough Fair) or Liam CLancy (The Patriot Game). Any LP of Dylan sources would surely have been compiled later likeall the "Roots of" albums that we get nowadays.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 09:38 AM

Dylan even wrote in the liner notes that Bob Dylan's Dream (Lord Franklin) comes from Martin Carthy.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 11:00 AM

Though I will admit to enjoying Dylan's music over several decades I make no claim of being a Dylan scholar. However, I doubt seriously that there was one recording that served as a source for Dylan's songs. The Harry Smith Anthology probably was an important resource but from what I have read, Dylan was an avid listener to recording collections of friends and to other singers as well. That he listened to and absorbed songs and music that had survived the passage of time is one of things that also made his music creations memorable and of lasting value.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 12:06 PM

I didn't know that "Lady Franklin's Lament" was the same song as "Lord Franklin" ~ which I did know was the source for the tune of "Bob Dylan's Dream."

Barbara seems to know of an old-ish traditonal folk album, recorded by a couple, that included the five songs she mentions, which (coincidentally or not) each is the source for a Dylan song. Such an album could very well exist without necessarily having been the album that Bob listened to and "mined" for this particular material.

After all, we know that he hung out with the Clancys in New York and learned several traditional songs from them whose melodies he recycled, and also that he himself credits Carthy as his source for at least one of the songs mentioned above.

So, it is unlikely that this putative album actually served as Dylan's source for these melodies, but it is not at all unlikely that an obscure folk-revival duo might have cut an album featuring the five abovementioned songs. (If they recorded it after Bob have made up his adaptations, they may have been making a deliberate effort to include the original versions of "new" songs recently readapted and popularized by an emerging star performer.)

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 12:57 PM

I tend to agree with Arkie that there wasn't any single album that influenced Dylan the most. I am just re-reading Sounes' biog (for at least the fourth around) and the main early influences were: the folk scene in Minneapolis, Guthrie, NYC folk scene, John Lee Hooker, Jesse Fuller, Clancy Bros, Big Joe Williams etc (all part of the NYC folk scene). The first album 'Bob Dylan' is essentially blues based, with only one original, 'Song to Woody'. Then he met Suze Rotolo who strongly influenced his political/social awareness, resulting in 'Blowin in the Wind'. The rest is history.

For 'God on our Side', Dylan used the trad melody that Dominic Behan used for 'Patriot Game' (learned from Liam Clancy). Some advance the argument that he took more than the melody, based on the phrase 'O my name it aint nothin, my age it means less', being similar to 'My name is 'O'Hanlon and I've just gone sixteen'. (Actually O'Hanlon was 20 when he was killed in '57, but never mind). Behan's widow told she thought Dylan was guily of
plaigirism. I didn't and don't agree with her but avoided an argument. However there was a good deal of resentment in the Behan camp. I recall from the 60s that Behan was gonna sue Dylan but I'm not sure that he ever did. Any know?

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Jim McLean
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 05:51 PM

Hi Big Tim,
We're just going over old ground here. I discussed The Patriot Game with Dylan in the Troubadour way back in the sixties when he asked me what it was all about. He heard Nigel Denver singing it whom, by the way, he got Leaving of Liverpool from. The verse Josephine accused Dylan of plagiarizing is so obvious I'm surprised you disagree 'My name is O' Hanlon ...' 'My name it means nothing' etcetera.It was a couple of years after our discussion that his song came out. I heard it when I was in Denmark and the similarities were so obvious. It's all water under the bridge now but Dominic did try to sue Dylan's record company or rather his publisher 'tried' to sue Dylan's publisher but not very hard for reason's I can't make public without being accused of anti-semitism. Email me and I'll explain.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Cool Beans
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 06:44 PM

Big Tim, "Song to Woody" is taken from Woody Guthrie's song "1913 Massacre" about the deaths of copper workers in Michigan's Upper Peninsula ("Take a trip with me back to 1913/ To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country...)" which has been bisected, dissected and resurrected and genuflected in many a Mudcat thread. So Dylan's "Song To Woody" is original only in its lyrics.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Nerd
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 06:49 PM

Jim, that lawsuit was hopeless. The words to the two songs don't resemble each other nearly enough to constitute copyright infringement, and Behan didn't write the tune. It's fine to say they didn't try very hard to sue, but the fact is they would almost certainly have lost anyway. The question in a copyright case isn't whether it is obvious that Behan's song influenced Dylan, but whether Dylan took too many specific words, phrases, and original ideas from Behan, and he took almost none. The only specific words that the verse in question shared were:

"My name is"

vs.

"My name it is"

which is much flimsier than other cases I have seen where infringement was not found to have occurred.

Barbara, I agree with everyone else. There is no single LP from which Dylan learned all of these songs, although there may be one that coincidentally includes them all. Was the couple you remember British or American?

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 07:22 PM

Poppagator wrote,

"So, it is unlikely that this putative album actually served as Dylan's source for these melodies, but it is not at all unlikely that an obscure folk-revival duo might have cut an album featuring the five abovementioned songs. (If they recorded it after Bob have made up his adaptations, they may have been making a deliberate effort to include the original versions of "new" songs recently readapted and popularized by an emerging star performer.)"

I wonder whether that "obscure folk-revival duo" that Barbara heard could have been Tim Hart & Maddy Prior, who did record a couple of albums of British trad that probably had some of Dylan's source material.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Nerd
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 07:46 PM

Hmmm. good theory, but they recorded none of these songs save "Westron Wynde," which they recorded eight years after Freewheelin Bob Dylan.

Another possibility: Jo Stafford and Paul Weston. Stafford was a pop singer, but did record a few folk albums.

The crucial thing that suggests Stafford is that the tune used by Behan for The Patriot Game was not a widespread traditional melody; it's a version of The Nightingale popularized by Burl Ives. Burl may have adapted the tune himself into the form it has now. Stafford and Weston are the only early recording of this to feature a man and woman, though Weston didn't sing, and he was credited as "with Paul Weston." This version actually predates The Patriot Game itself, and may be where Behan got the tune from (though he more likely got it from Burl Ives).

You can hear the Stafford/Weston version here:

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 08:06 PM

Ian & Sylvia? Just a guess.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 09:53 PM

Back at 12:57 PM, Big Tim wrote:

"The first album 'Bob Dylan' is essentially blues based, with only one original, 'Song to Woody'. Then he met Suze Rotolo who strongly influenced his political/social awareness, resulting in 'Blowin in the Wind'. The rest is history."

Interesting, and absolutley obvious once you point it out ~ "Blowin' in the Wind" and many many other memorable songs as well. Don't forget, Suze's right there on the iconic Freewheelin' album cover photo. She had grown up in New York, in a very politically/socially conscious family, and certainly had tremendous influence on Bob's work and, for thta matter, on Bob.

As some of you surely know, but others might not, and be interested to, know ~ Suze very recently published her memoir of those years.

(If you're thinking of buying it online, log onto the Amazon/Mudcat connection so a few cents of your expenditure goes to this good cause. Instructions are on the Mudcat home page.)

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Barbara
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 02:34 AM

Okay, okay, I do know that Dominic Behan wrote Patriot game, and no, I don't mean Ian and Sylvia or Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, both sets of whom I am very familiar with. British couple and I have this vague memory that they shared a last name and had really memorable first names like David and Linda, you know, that sort of thing.
Oh, one of the other songs was not
Bedlam, but Nottamin Town (sorry, don't remember how to spell it). That's what I was remembering.

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: BanjoRay
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 03:44 AM

It's Nottamun Town, I think from Jean Ritchie, which was the tune source for Masters of War.
Ray

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 09:27 AM

Nerd, how about this:

Behan: My name is O'Hanlon, my age is sixteen
Dylan: Oh my name it is nothin', my age it means less

Behan: My home is in Monaghan, 'twas there I was weaned
Dylan: The country I come from, is called the midwest

Behan: I was taught all my live cruel England to blame
Dylan: I was taught and brought up there, the laws to abide

Behan: That made me a part of the Patriot game
Dylan: And the land that I live in, has God on its side
(the last phrase of each song is repeated at the end of each verse, i.e. similar pattern)

I have always thought there was not enough for a legal action of any kind but even Dylan's mother would agree that he was influenced by Behan's first verse and although the tune is trad, he obviously got it from the Patriot game.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Arkie
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 11:02 AM

There are certainly similarities in the lyrics of the two songs and I really would not question that Dylan used Patriot Game as a starting place, but on the other had he worked from a pattern that I am not certain is exclusive to Behan's song. Consider the following:

My name is Pat O'Donnell
And I come from Donegal,

My name is Jack Haggerty
From Greenville I come

My name is Mary Hamilton,
I was born o high degree.

Oh! My name is John Wellington Wells -
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,

My name is Dan Logan
From Llanllogan I came

My name is Joseph Baxter
I’m a gent well known in town

My name is Patrick Shean
My years are thirty four
Tipperary is my native place
Not far from Galmore

My name is Ted O'Mannon

My name is bold Morgan Mc'Carthy

My name is Ikey Bill

Etc.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 02:33 PM

Yes Cool Beans, I knew that about the 1913 Massacre. (I have both WG and Christy Moore singing it). I was of course referring only to Dylan's lyrics. (But, can we be sure that WG actually wrote the tune as he wasn't renowned for his composition of original melodies? Arlo and Dave Van Ronk tell some good, and good natured, stories on this theme.

I feel that Dylan is more criticized that most for his use of trad tunes. Truth is, virtually everyone did it. Paxton, Ochs, Behan, Alec Campbell, etc, etc, yet I never see or hear of them being criticised for this. Could it be that some folks are just a tad envious of Dylan because he achieved such super wealth and fame.

Nothing stopped any of the others also achieving that level of wealth and fame - except that they didn't have the talent. God knows they tried long and hard enough.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Dandy
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 04:11 PM

The last poster assumes that critics of Bob Dylan are either failures or just plain envious. So honest critics like me, who can argue rationally against Dylan's work should just be dismissed? get a life, Big Tim, and look at the bigger picture.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 04:38 PM

Dylan had a lot of nerve taking folksongs and rewriting them.

Perhaps we should blame his role models who did the same thing: Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Ewan MacColl, AP Carter, Robert Johnson, WC Handy, etc.

How about his contemporaries who did the same thing: Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Phil Ochs, Len Chandler, Utah Phillips, etc.

And while we're at it, don't forget all the Johnny-come-latlies who followed after and did the same thing: John McCutcheon, Bill Staines, Mary McCaslin, John Prine, Steve Goodman, Arlo Guthrie, etc.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Nerd
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 06:08 PM

Agreed, Jim. He was certainly influenced by The Patriot Game, and I certainly wouldn't deny that. But it was not enough to constitute an infringement of copyright.

Sorry the Jo Stafford suggestion didn't fit the bill. Hope someone enjoys the clip, though...

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Bill kennedy
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 07:39 PM

barbara - you might be remembering an album by Shirley Collins and Davy Graham, buyt I don't think it pre-dates thr Freeewheelin Bob Dylan recording

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 08:07 PM

and I am assuming you can't mean a couple like Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger, or even Marais and Miranda but some obscure one-off?

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 12:39 PM

Nobody forced people to buy 60 million Dylan albums, attend 103 concerts per year, all around the world, in numerous languages; buy his painting for £300,000, etc. They liked what they heard from him more than they heard from any other (serious) singer/songwriter.

Dylan must have done, be doing, something extraordinary. He really got to people; as Joan Baez said,'he went way deep'.

Ochs, Paxton, Campbell, Behan, (and I am a fan of all of them), or anybody else, just didn't have that appeal, impact, talent; call it what you will.

Dylan isn't perfect but he's the best, so far.

The Harry Smith recordings were probably the most influential on the young Dylan.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Dandy
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 09:30 AM

£300,000 for a Dyland painting? You must be nuts or is this proof that where Dylan fans are concerned they'd pay that sort of money for a mediocre piece of daubing.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 12:05 PM

I only paid £2500 for two hand-signed, limited edition prints. However, if I had £300,000, I'd regard a Dylan original painting as a better bet than the stock markets of recent years.

The price tho is quite an indication of Bob's special status and stature.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: GUEST,Dandy
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 03:59 PM

£2.500 ?? You are obviously investing in the man's name rather than his painting abilities which is not only dishonest but greedy.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Muswell Hillbilly
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 04:03 PM



Ain't democracy a wonderful thing, besides the same could be said of any celebrities work, no matter the medium

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 04:42 PM

I'd love to listen to the Harry Smith recordings, are they available anywhere?

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Arkie
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 09:29 PM

The Anthology is now available on CDs and I would guess it could be found at Camsco.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: NormanD
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 08:33 AM

I started looking for a site that listed the Harry Smith Anthlogy songs recorded by Dylan or been released on bootleg, or he has rewritten or re-named. I got quickly bored with that task and got involved in reading about the Anthology itself.

One related project - and it links into the brief discussion above about Dylan's work as a visual artist - is a current exhibition based around the Anthology.

Called "Harry Smith Anthology Remixed", this is an exhibition by students from the Glasgow School of Art Degree Show. The blurb tells us:

"Harry Smith Anthology Remixed has a simple premise: take each of the 84 songs, and ask an artist to create a visual representation of it. The result is an exhibition that's as witty, moving, innovative and human as the songs themselves. Contributors to the exhibition include musicians like Michael Nyman, DJ Spooky, Yamantaka Eye, Vashti Bunyan and Jad Fair, as well as a whole host of established and up-and-coming visual artists. Media used includes graphic art, collage, photography, painting and sculpture – but each piece is uniformly sized and framed."

The exhibition runs from June 21st to July 26th 2008 and there's no chance of me getting up to Glasgow to see it, though maybe someone here close enough and interested enough to go might report back.

Norman

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: NormanD
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 08:43 AM

Oops, forgot the weblink:
http://tinyurl.com/5558gl

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: peregrina
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 10:23 AM

Greil Marcus, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes

explores some of Dylan's musical sources, most from the Harry Smith Anthology, with a mixture of meandering reflections and fantastic anecdotes (the chapter about Dock Boggs having to busk his way back to pay for more gas/petrol when it ran out is unforgettable).

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 11:46 AM

Thanks Arkie, found Harry Anthology on Amazon and have ordered. Quite pricy but to hell with poverty! Really looking forward to hearing what Dylan 'stole' in Dinkeytown in 1959!

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 12:13 PM

I tried reading the Greil Marcus book but found it pretty impenetratable. I probably wasn't concentrating hard enough (many brain cells having long departed), but will give it a second go.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: peregrina
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 12:49 PM

Actually, the Greil Marcus book makes more sense after you have the Anthology disks and the two wonderful booklets that come with it.

(One is Harry Smith's original booklet, which, among other things, summarizes each ballad in a phrase like a newspaper headline; the other is the Folkways one, typically full of all sorts of documentation and essays about the anthology itself and what it meant to people when it first appeared...)

But after all that, you could dispense with Marcus and go to Dylan's autobiography, where he describes memorizing songs from CDs that he played over and over in the store, borrowing peoples CDs (often folkways, not always returning them) , browsing through the libraries and reading the books of the people whose New York sofas he stayed on.

He was voraciously hoovering up music and literature wherever he went, which makes the idea of a one LP source unlikely.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: peregrina
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 01:13 PM

woops--make that vinyl records not CDs!!--twice over.

(error from me--who never had a record player)

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Nerd
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 01:06 AM

Barbara, although I still don't think there was a single album from which Dylan took all those songs, I'm still wondering who you could be remembering. David and Linda or some such names?

Dave and Toni Arthur?
Derek and Dorothy Elliott?
Paul and Linda Adams?

Any of these ring a bell?

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Barbara
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 03:31 AM

I will check those out. It certainly wasn't anyone I'd heard of before or since. I'll get back here if I find the source.
And I wasn't meaning to diss Dylan. Or praise him. I simply wanted to know the source(s) of the songs. I also don't know if some of his later stuff is derivative -- the only one I am aware of is "Lay Down Your Weary Tunes, Lay Down" which I have often heard gets its tune and possibly some of the words from a Welsh hymn.
I think it was Hank Bradley whose songwriting advice consists of "Steal from the best".
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 04:54 AM

I't impossible to 'steal' a traditional melody and Dylan has said that some of his tunes have been adapted from 'Protestant hymns'.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Arkie
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 09:58 AM

I think Lay Down Your Weary Tune may have been adapted from Waly, Waly, or The Water Is Wide.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Arkie
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 10:06 AM

I might also add that the melody is found in the Methodist Hymnal c. 1989. Our congregation sang it a few Sundays ago. I did not note if it was one of the Welsh hymns included in the hymnal.

Subject: RE: Name the trad LP that is Dylan source
From: Big Tim
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 11:49 AM

There's an interesting entry on 'Weary Tune' in 'The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia' by Michael Gray.