Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka

Subject: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 12 May 22 - 06:35 PM

Discussion in today's media of Finland joining NATO reminds me of a 1981 tour made to Finland with a pickup band called Glasgow Green.
In Jyvaskula we her a fiddler called Markku, who played a favourite Finnish tune, the Karelian Polka, Karelia being the culture-rich Finnish province annexed by the Soviets after WW2.
I recognised the fiddle tune as the basis for My Dixie Darling, performed by Uncle Dave Macon, and a favourite song of Billy Connolly's and other Old Timey fans.
Grabbing a province and claiming ownership. What's new? I grieve for all my Russian friends caught up in the absurd lies of wartime.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 May 22 - 08:19 PM

Percy Wenrich was very popular as a composer. He wrote My Dixie Darling. He predates
A.P. Carter. A.P. rewrote many tunes including Maud Irving's Wildwood Flower.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 14 May 22 - 03:03 PM

“Maud Irving” was a pseudonym used by J. William Van Namee, a poet, spiritualist and “trance speaker” (what we today would call a medium, or channeler of spirits), a self-professed "eclectic and clairvoyant physician,"

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Cool Beans
Date: 17 May 22 - 10:43 AM

My wife, Laura, figured out that the verse and chorus of My Dixie Darling can be sung/played simultaneously. Try it!

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Rasener
Date: 17 May 22 - 02:35 PM

Love My Dixie Darling by Lonnie Donegan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TFPkGqeHPE

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 22 - 03:45 PM

I prefer this by a country mile, the original carter family, maybelles guitar playing and saras singing. know lonnie into a cocked hat imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XnMaHQi6L8

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 May 22 - 09:01 AM

The tune is almost identical to "Avanti Popolo", an Italian Communist song featured in the movie,
The Organizer with Mastrioani.(sp?)

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 24 May 22 - 05:57 PM

Well spotted, Stringsinger. In Clydebank near Glasgow there is an annual march commemorating the WW2 Clydebank Blitz, many people died. Our group the Scottish CND Buskers were singing on the stage, the Barrhead Pipe Band marched in playing Avanti Popolo, and we sang along. We got astonished looks from the pipers, who had never heard anything louder than themselves.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 May 22 - 01:27 AM

Lonnie Donegan every time, Carter Family version is very weedy.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 May 22 - 03:29 AM

huilarious, sara carte singing" weedy"
she has more balls in her singing than ten Lonnies. bONZO NOT ONLY ARE YOUR POLITICAL OPINIONS DAFT BUT SO ARE YOUR MUSICAL OPINIONS

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 May 22 - 03:37 AM

Bonzo
1. without the original carter family version which popularised the song lonnies version would not have existed.
without maybelle carters, guitar style of soloing, thousands of good guitarists would not have used the carter family scratch.
maybelle carter was an innovator, furthermore her other styles of fingerpicking used in cannonball blues were an example of black and white cultures merging, she was taught guitar style of cannonball blues by a black man lesley riddle

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 May 22 - 07:39 AM

Whilst they both commercialised the music, The Original Carter Family were singing songs from their own background and their own roots they had absorbed the music it was part of their upbringning.
Lonnie was orignally a jazz banjo player
Donegan was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow, Scotland, on 29 April 1931. He was the son of an Irish mother and a Scots father, a professional violinist who had played with the Scottish National Orchestra. In 1933, at age 2, he moved with his family to East Ham in East London.
As a child growing up in the early 1940s Donegan listened mostly to swing jazz and vocal acts, and became interested in the guitar. Country & western and blues records,and recordings particularly by Frank Crumit and Josh White.
In my opinion this is evident in the difference of the styles.
Lonnies perfomance of the song in my opinion illustrate the difference in their roots, nothing wrong with Lonnies version, but it does not have the same strength of appalachian roots, as the OriginalCarter Family

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 May 22 - 02:55 PM

I couldn't give a gnats pee about "roots", the sound is what is important to me - and many others too!!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 May 22 - 03:22 PM

Bonzo, the sound is important, and that is another reason i prefer the Carter Family version, and i do not care a gnats pee about your preference, so lets beg to differ.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: Cool Beans
Date: 31 May 22 - 11:32 AM

Here's Laura's version (with me).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IeFJa1GUro

Subject: RE: Origins: Dixie Darling and Karelian Polka
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 May 22 - 02:06 PM

no comment