Scottish song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle

Subject: Bogies Bonnie Belle
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 04:46 PM

here is a version with concertina,recorded on a 56 key Wheatstone tenor treble,slightly different ending.anyone know how old the song is?
is it 1900,or earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrwfuveekG0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrwfuveekG0

Subject: RE: Bogies Bonnie Belle
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:16 PM

The earliest collected version seems to be 1905 in Grieg-Duncan; there are several there in 1906-1908, IIRC. For information on the origin of the song, see Malcolm Douglas' post in this thread: Lyr Req: Bogie's Bonny Belle

Mick

Subject: RE: Bogies Bonnie Belle
From: LesB
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:40 PM

Then of course there is Les Barkers version 'Belles Bonnie Bogey'
Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: Bogies Bonnie Belle
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 04:22 AM

of course.
I think Bogies Bonnie Belle is powerful.

Subject: RE: Bogies Bonnie Belle
From: BB
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 09:33 AM

John Kirkpatrick does a great version of this, recorded on 'One Man and His Box'.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Bogies Bonnie Belle
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 10:29 AM

my version is also available on a cd available from my website.
my version above is free to download from you tube.
I know there are people on this site who are critical because it is self promotion,but it is also promotion of traditional music,and I think it is important,that this occurs,I also think it is important,that we should share the music,without people always having to pay for it.
the more people who stumble across the music accidentally ,the more we all benefit.

Subject: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: GUEST,MeliAlto
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 01:46 PM

I tried the lyric search but I can only remember snippets of the lyric and it couldn't help. I heard a song on a CD once about a guy who goes to see a man named Bogie O'Kearney for work and meets his daughter Isobel. She ends up getting pregnant, he wants to marry her, and Bogie says no. So she ends up with a Tinker. I think it's traditional, but it's probably more likely a modern song. Does anyone know the name of the song and who might have performed it?

Subject: RE: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: GUEST,Doxy
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 01:57 PM

Hiya,
Hope this helps.
"Bogie's Bonnie Belle" (Watching the Dark)

Recorded by Richard Thomson

The narrator, a farm laborer, agrees to work for Bogie O'Kearney (spell it as you see fit), then gets his employer's daughter Belle pregnant. When the baby is born, the narrator is sent for, "to see what could be done." His offer to do the right thing is rejected because of his status:
I said that I might marry her
but, no, that would not do
You're no match for Isabelle
and she's no match for you
Ironically, Belle, who is now damaged goods and has therefore lost her status, ends up marrying a tinker, that is, someone even lower on the social ladder than the laborer. Some of the other versions of the ballad are quite vindictive about this; but here the bitterness, if it's there, its largely left unsaid:
Maybe she has a better match
Oh Bogie can not tell
So farewell you lads of Huntley Town
and Bogie's Bonnie Belle
In the end, everybody loses: the laborer loses both his love and his job (as well as, presumably, his child), Belle winds up saddled to a tinker, and Bogie loses his daughter.

Subject: RE: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: Marje
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 02:06 PM

The full words are in the DT, where you'll see that they're Scots - it's not an Irish song. I think it is traditional - it seems to have been collected fron the Stewart family of travellers, and has been recorded by various Scottish singers.

Marje

Subject: RE: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 02:08 PM

Wow, that's a quick reply! Thank you Doxy that is the song I was looking for. I don't remember Richard Thompson singing it but he might have. At least now I can look for it on Amazon.

Subject: RE: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 02:10 PM

Bogies Bonnie Belle

Subject: RE: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 02:11 PM

Christy Moore's version

Subject: RE: Looking for name of trad.(?) Irish song
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 05:32 PM

Bogie O'Kearney is a 'mondegreen' for Bogie o' Cairney - Bogie being the name of the farm and Cairney its location.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 06:24 PM

The River Bogie meets the River Deveron in Huntly, a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The area to the south is Strathbogie. The Deveron forms part of the boundary between Strathbogie and Cairnie.

In 1306, Huntly Castle was home to John of Strathbogie, Earl of Fife and Earl of Atholl. It passed to David of Strathbogie.

Huntly FC of the Highland League play at Christie Park; Deveronvale FC play at Princess Royal Park in Banff. Local Hero was filmed outside Banff and Macduff at Pennan. The famous red phone box stands outside the Pennan Inn.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 08:34 PM

Worthy of a thread title adjustment methinks! Irish song??
Lots of recordings of it: try Jock Duncan or Geordie Murison's singing of it.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Effsee
Date: 06 Apr 11 - 10:52 PM

For the definitive version of BBB, I can't hear better than Tam Spiers of the Gaugers rendition TB.

Just what henryp's contibution to the thread is I am in total confusion!

The red phone box is actually across the road from the Pennan Inn.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: BobKnight
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 04:10 AM

Henryp is telling you where the song originated and giving you the geographical references in the song. Also a little history.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 05:28 AM

I am the only Englishman to have ever played rugby for Huntly Town - it was the 1970s and I was working for the famous "Baxters of Speyside" in Fochabers. Did a bit of playing up there too at Buckie folk club and in a band with two accordian players. At that time Huntly had a hotel with the only seven day drinks license in the area - hence its attraction to rugby players.

Roger

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: breezy
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 09:58 AM

Mick MacCready used to do a really splendid version way back in the 1970s when he was a resident at the Golden Lion Folk club 4 nights a week during the summer, in Padstow, Cornwall Eng and it always sounded authentic coming from Scot.

He also did a lovely version of 'Come by the Hills'

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 11:53 AM

its not irish

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Liberty Boy
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 12:09 PM

One of the best versions around has to be Joe Aitken's.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 12:00 PM

Strange that no-one has mentioned what is probably the most influential (if not the oldest outside the books) version of the song by Davie Stewart- it's certainly the one which Christy Moore heard & was knocked out by in the Victoria Bar, Blairgowrie in August 1968- maybe that's why some folk think it's Irish?

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 02:10 PM

Note from The Greig Duncan collection
Jim Carroll

BOGIE'S BONNIE BELL Cf. Kennedy No. 340 "Bogie's Bonny Belle". The following note has been supplied by Peter Hall: "Isabel Morison, the heroine of the song, was born at Boghead, 20 September 1823, as the daughter of Alexander Morison (Old Parish Register, Cairney). She again appears at Boghead in the census of 1841. Her illegitimate son, James, was born on 16 June 1843, the father being James Stephen from the parish of Glass (OPR, Cairney). In the census of 1851, the son was living with his paternal uncle in the parish of Glass, lending credence to the versions of the song which have the father remove the child from the maternal home. Isabel Morrison is no longer at Boghead in 1851."
"The story of the song is about this tinsmith courting the daughter of Bogie (Boghead, he thinks); the man was at that time, probably, a servant with her father. He afterwards became a well-known tinsmith in Huntly, and was famed for his lamps and lanterns, which are named after him, 'Bowmans'. He died only a few years ago." (Alexander, between pp. 8 and 9) A side note states that the last lines given are the "two last lines of song". 3.2 "guid": MS "quid".

SCROGIE'S BELL "There may be occasionally heard about Huntly two local unedited songs 'Bogie's (Boghead Cairnie) Bonny Bell' and 'Scrogie's Bell'. The former has a wide popularity and will easily be recovered words and tune. I have heard a granite mason home from America singing this. When questioned he said it was popular with the men in Canada. The merit of the poem - if it has any - lies in the denouement where after the cruel parent had put effectual bars between the first pair of true lovers, the verse declares:- [Text, 1396 N], The other song is the love story of a navvy - the railway came to Huntly some fifty years ago but that will be easy to ascertain. - [Text.] Perhaps the Huntly Express may be of help for the airs of those pieces. There are relatives of both 'heroines' still to the fore so that the appearance of the songs themselves would not be looked for in such a production as a local newspaper. With the Spalding Club Publications it is different." Alex MacDonald, writing to Duncan. (998/7/3/13)

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 15 Nov 14 - 06:33 PM

Agree with Jim; I learned my version from the singing of Davie Stewart (he played my club The Royal Turf, Felling on Tyne around 1968 too). Also full marks to henryp for the background and the mention of The Highland League with which I have a strange fascination. Working in Macduff on and off over the last couple of years I actually took a picture of Deveronvale's ground so that I had some tangible evidence of its existence.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 03:52 AM

Thank you, Dave.

From Mainly Norfolk; Bogie's Bonnie Belle was a Scots Travellers' favourite bothy ballad. Jimmy McBeath sang it in a recording made by Alan Lomax in his apartment in London on November 14, 1953.

Strathbogie remains an active community. Deveron Arts

Ardmore distillery, built in 1898 to produce fillings for Teacher's Highland Cream, is set in the farmland of the Garioch, near the River Bogie and Leith Hall at Kennethmont, near Huntly. The springs on Knockandy Hill are the source of its water.

Turriff United, another nearby Highland League team, play at The Haughs beside the River Deveron.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: cptsnapper
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 03:59 AM

Am I right in thinking that Archie Fisher sings this?

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Thompson
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 04:42 AM

Should the title of the thread be changed to reflect the fact that the song's Scottish? People who might read it thinking "Hmm, an Irish song I don't know" are all very well, but a "Scottish song" heading would attract people to click who might actually be able to add information?

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish(?) song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,Kenny
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 05:30 AM

"cptsnapper" - quite correct. I'm fairly certain that Archie Fisher recorded it on an LP record he made with John Doonan and John MacKinnon, if not in the late 60s, then the early 70s.

My own favourite version has always been by another Aberdeen singer, Allan Carr.

The Irish connection I would say was more down to Finbar and Eddie Furey, who recorded it in 1969, some years before Christy Moore
[ unless it's on that very rare first solo LP record of his which is now virtually unobtainable ]. The Fureys were certainly at the Blairgowrie Festivals of the 1960s - I heard from several reliable sources that for some reason Eddie drove their car into the river !. So it's very likely that their source of the song was Davie Stewart at a Blairgowrie festival.
I was in Blairgowrie at that time, at school, but hadn't yet taken an interest in traditional music. I often regret what I missed at those festivals.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish(?) song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: banjoman
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 06:34 AM

Somewhere in our vast record collection we have a version of this song on a 78. The artist is given as D. Stewart (The street Singer) and is largely unaccompanied with a few bars of what I think is a concertina.
Could try & find it as not played it for at least 25 years.

Subject: RE: Seeking name of Irish(?) song- Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Vic Smith
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 07:07 AM

Somewhere in our vast record collection we have a version of this song on a 78. The artist is given as D. Stewart (The street Singer) and is largely unaccompanied with a few bars of what I think is a concertina.

I would be amazed to find that Davie Stewart, my all-time favourite singer, had recorded a 78 of Bogie's Bonnie Belle, Somehow I doubt it but I would be delighted to be proved wrong. There have been quite a number of versions of Davie singing this song, the earliest as far as I know was on the Topic/Caedmon Folk Songs of Great Britain: Volume 2: Songs of Seduction published in America on Caedmon Records in 1961 and later in the UK on Topic in 1968 and 1970 and I wonder if banjoman could be confusing this with the vinyl releases from around that time.
I heard Davie play melodeon, accordion, highland warpipes and tin whistle but never concertina.... but why not? I'm sure he could have done.

Read about Davie Stewart by clicking here.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 01:08 PM

Hi Kenny, both Christy and the Fureys (and their dad Ted) were at the 1968 Blair festival- not before that- I'm quite sure of that as me and my pal Jim Irvine guided them up there. Think the song was on Christy's first LP- as you say, it's now almost unobtainable, partly because Christy buys them up if he gets the chance as he hates it! Told a pal of mine about that & he said he had a signed copy!
I, like Vic would be fascinated to hear of banjoman's 78 of D Stewart singing this wonderful tragic song.
About Eddie driving his car into the river, am not surprised, as none of us held back on the alcohol consumption- mind you if the river Ericht was in its frequent state of flood, he'd have finished up in the North Sea! Mind you it was a lovely summer, so the story could be a true 'un?

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,Jim I
Date: 16 Nov 14 - 03:09 PM

I remember being there Jim but not guiding Ted and the boys. But then the alcohol consumption was mighty!

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 17 Nov 14 - 04:11 AM

Kenny is correct that Archie Fisher recorded it on his album "Archie Fisher" which I got as a 21st present (in 1969); it had some great stuff on it and it remains the only LP that I ever lost; probably loaned it to someone before I moved from the North East in 1978.
Yes Henry, I spotted Turriff's ground through the fog on the A947 when I drove up there a couple of weeks ago – that's two for my collection now!!

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 17 Nov 14 - 05:45 AM

When I agreed that the 'Fureys' were at Blair in 1968,that was Finbar and Eddie only, of course- I do remember seeing Davie Stewart busking in Coupar Angus, only a few miles short of Blairgowrie on the way to the festival & giving him a lift there- Christy remembers that too...he was following us.
This summer, the RTE radio morning 'John Murray show' asked listeners to call in & request Christy for a song- I requested 'Bogie's Bonnie Belle' & to is great credit, he remembered all of it, and old Davie as well. Mind you, he was a memorable character- he used to call me jimmy brainbox & he was known to friends as the 'Galoot'
I've still got that LP, Dave- & no I didn't borrow it from you!

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Nov 14 - 06:14 AM

Yes, Ted, was also there, and if you thought the sons were wild....

It is true as Mr Brainbox says that none of us held back on the alcohol consumption so that the Blairgowrie festival campsite was generally a very torpid place in the morning with much nursing of sore heads. That did not stop Ted Furey stomping around the site at 6.30am bawling "Good Morning, Happy Campers" followed by a sardonic Glaswegian voice emerging from a tent near us - "Will somebody do us all a favour and shoot that mad f***ing Irishman!"

About Eddie driving his car into the river....

And it was not just vehicles that the River Ericht was in danger of being polluted from. The aforementioned excessive alcohol consumption caused otherwise sensible upright citizens to think that it would be a good thing to jump into the river fully clothed. I can present photographic evidence of this. It occurred after a heavy Saturday lunchtime drinking and music session in the company of an old traveller who was telling me how he used fish for salmon in the Erict - using dynamite.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 17 Nov 14 - 09:35 AM

your 'photographic evidence' sounds very interesting Vic- I know it wasn't me- I subscribe to the WC Fields view of water...
'Never drink water.... fish f... in it'

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: banjoman
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 04:45 AM

I have been proved wrong - I dug out our records and find the song I refer to is on an old LP (Folk songs of Great Britain) which had been lodged in our 78 collection. Still a great song. Played it today.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 05:20 AM

I can remember a recording of this in the early sixties. I was sure it was Alex Campbell but can only find a recording of his from the mid seventies.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,Kenny
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 07:06 AM

Vic - your photo looks like it's of a young Alistair Anderson to me.
Would that be right ? I'm sure I did see a photo from the 1968 Blairgowrie festival some where on the internet, and he was in it.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Vic Smith
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 09:08 AM

Vic - your photo looks like it's of a young Alistair Anderson to me.

.... and how I wish that were right, Kenny, but sadly it is a photo of a young Vic Smith.... but yes, Alistair Anderson was there and again I can provide photographic evidence.

This is actually Trevor Sheridan's photo of Alistair Anderson with Isla St. Clair which he emailed to me. Trevor describes Isla as looking "captivated" though whether by Alistair's dazzling concertina technique or by something else, he doesn't say. You will have to judge for yourselves!

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: doncatterall
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 02:46 PM

apologies for being pedantic (and possibly mistaken) but isn't it a Doric rather than "Scots" song?

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 04:28 PM

why can't it be both?

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 05:12 PM

Hope nobody was offended by my mis-identification, Vic. Thanks for clarification.
I'd say it was a Scottish song [ "Scots", if you like ], but in the Doric dialect.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 06:29 PM

Bogie's Bonny Belle Project Report

Deveron Arts commissioned Shona Donaldson for a year-long residency to research the bothy ballads local to the Huntly area, to write new tunes for existing lyrics and new ballads for old tunes.

Shona Donaldson, who is bilingual in English and Doric, researched the traditions of the Bothy Ballads in the North East of Scotland, in particular focusing on a contemporary adaptation of the Greig-Duncan Collection.

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,ollaimh
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 10:30 PM

it's a lovely song, I used to play it in dadgad on guitar when I played guitar a lot more. now I play harp a lot more, I should work out a harp version--should be a natural for harp

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Nov 14 - 12:54 AM

What means "doric", please? Is it another of those pesky modes?

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,Kenny
Date: 19 Nov 14 - 04:26 AM

Doric ? - see @ 8m12s

http://youtu.be/LBDCCaf7RAA

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 19 Nov 14 - 05:57 PM

Sorry - link doesn't work - just "Google" "Scotland The What" on "youtube". The phone call to Buckingham Palace is the best [ thanks to Mudcat member "EffCee" for that, many moons ago ! ].

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: Songbird
Date: 20 Nov 14 - 05:09 AM

Does anyone else get distressed at the use of the word "Scots" (i.e. belonging to the people called "Scots") instead of the adjective "Scottish" to describe its origin

[I think that's a good idea- changed]

Subject: RE: Scots song - Bogie's Bonnie Belle
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Nov 14 - 05:28 AM

Personally, I get distressed at the use of Scotch.