Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man

Subject: Lyr Add: CELEBRATED WORKING MAN
From: Conrad Bladey (Peasant- Inactive)
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 10:21 AM

Celebrated Working Man

I'm a celebrated working man from work I never shirk,
I can hew more coals than any man from Glasgow down to York.
And if you'd like to see my style, call around on me
When I' ve had several beers in the bar room.

Chorus:
In the bar room, in the bar room, that's where we congregate,
To drill the holes and fill the coals and shovel back the slate.
And for to do a job of work I am never late,
That's provided that we do it in the bar room.

At puttin' I'm a dandy, I hope you will agree,
And gannin along the gannin board I mak the tyun'uns flee
Your kelly sweeps and back-over turns they never bother me,
When I'm sitting on the limmers in the bar room.

I can judge a shot of power to a sixteenth of a grain,
I can fill my eighteen tubs though the water falls like rain,
And if you'd like to see me in the perpendicular vein,
It's when I'm setting timmers in the bar room.

And now my song is ended, perhaps we'll  have another,
Now don't you fire any shots in here, or we will surely smother,
The landlord here would sooner pull beer than go to all the bother
To put up the ventilators in the bar room.^^

-Gwen and Mary Polwarth, North County songs

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 06:12 AM

You can find an excellent rendition of an American version of this song on 'Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners' Rounder CD 1502 sung by Daniel Walsh in Pennsylvania in 1946. It is a shortened version of the text that is in the DT - lovely!

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 11:01 AM

Can anyone tell me the history of the song "Celebrated Working Man"? Also can anyone help translate such words as gannin, tyu'uns, kelly, limmers and timmers?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 11:34 AM

Gannin - Going also called shuffling boards, flooring in a mine seam

tynuns - not sure but I think bolts to hold the gannins together

Kelly Turns - Hairpin bend

Limmers - Haunches or haughs ie. sitting down

Timmers - pit props

I also know a verse which goes:

I can set a stand of Timmers, lay a bar or single prop
I can cut me Juds at bottom, I can cut 'em at the top
I tell ye its a marvel lads how I get through the work
While I'm seated in my glory in the Bar room

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: bill\sables
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 02:46 PM

According to Bert Lloyd in "Folk Song in England" This song was of American origin. George Korson told the story of this song in "Minstrels of the Mine Patch" (Philadelphia 1943).It seems that it was composed by Irish miner Ed Foley in Pensylvania who sang it at a wedding in 1892. It was brought to Durham England by a Wobbly collier from Kentucky, Yankee Jim Roberts, some time around the period of the first world war. I first heard Jack Elliot of Birtley singing it in the late 50s , he then recorded it in 1963 on the LP "Jack Elliot of Birtley" on the Leader label. Cheers Bill

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: GUEST,bigJ
Date: 08 Sep 00 - 03:03 PM

It also appears in the book 'Pennsylvania Songs & Legends' (Johns Hopkins 1949). It doesn't have the 'In the barroom, in the barroom' chorus of the English version, but it does have a total of nine verses. Korson says: Foley sang it for the first time at the wedding of a niece at Mount Carmel in October 1892. It has had a steady popularity ever since. If I remember rightly, MacColl used the Elliot's version in his radio-balled 'The Big Hewer.'

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 12 Sep 00 - 04:06 AM

Thanks to Bill and Big J for the history. Thanks also to Wandering Minstrel for the extra verse but it would be nice to know what 'Juds' are.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 12 Sep 00 - 11:24 AM

To tell the truth I am not absolutely sure

I always thought they were triangular bits cut at the end of the prop so that when they joined to the overhead timbers they made a arched joint rather than a right angle thus increasing the load bearing?

any other suggestions?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: GUEST,Geordie Wilson
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 07:18 AM

Ed Foley was an Irish immigrant miner and minstrel working in Pennsylvania over a century ago. In 1892, he composed Celebrated Working Man, alternatively known as In The Bar Room. He wrote it after hearing a miner on his down-time in the bar brag that he could "cut more coal than any man from Pittsburgh to New York." Foley's song crossed the Atlantic with Yankee Jim Roberts of Kentucky and ended up - after being converted into local pitmatic dialect - in the coalfields of County Durham & Northumberland in North East England. For more details and original US lyrics a PDF file can be easily found online if you search for "Korson, George. 1927. Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners".

I learnt this song from two sources: First, from an acapella version by the late great Jack Elliot of Birtley. He performs the song on a cassette put together by his friends and family to raise money for cancer research. Second, from Michael Dawney's canny little booklet called "Doon The Waggon Way: Mining Songs from the North of England". (The booklet has a vocabulary section at the back)

I bought both the tape and booklet in the 90s from Windows Music Shop in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The shop's online and, if you're dead keen, you could contact them to see how the tape or book could be located. Both probably deleted or out of print though. Jack's music can be found fairly easily online if you want to purchase it. Some songs have short samples that you can listen to for free.

I recorded the song and stuck it up on YouTube. I think there's five chords D G A Em and Bm, which you can follow on the video if you're learning the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOk-UBCk_zo
I also have another North East coal mining song on YouTube which I learnt using the same two sources. Jowl Jowl:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFjY1LnDqWo

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: Artful Codger
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 03:56 PM

Geordie Wilson's YouTube links blickified:
In the Bar Room
Jowl Jowl

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 05:27 PM

The combination of well-known musicians, Colin Ross, Alastair Anderson, et al, who played some accompaniments and the instrumental tracks on Topic's classic Industrial Folksong record The Iron Muse, went on the album by the name of The Celebrated Working Men's Band. The song itself, sung by A L Lloyd, was naturally one of the tracks on the record.

~M~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 06:43 PM

Jud - coal ready to be brought down.

The 'jud' is curved (undermined), and the side is nicked, to allow the blast to topple over the coal with greater facility.

The term was used by Jock Purdon, who worked in the Durham coalfield, north-east England

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: Artful Codger
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 10:30 PM

The song may have appeared on the original LP of The Iron Muse, but it was sadly omitted from the CD reissue (which substituted some of the original songs with songs from other Topic releases).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 11:19 PM

I didn't know that, Codger. I still have my original vinyl. I take it that the ad hoc 'CWM' name for the band is retained?

~M~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Dec 12 - 12:04 AM

BTW, the boast as I recall it is that he "can hew as much as any man from *Delaval* to York", rather than "from Glasgow"; that would be Seaton Delaval, Northumberland.

~M~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: Artful Codger
Date: 05 Dec 12 - 12:36 AM

MGM, yes, the band is still labelled the "Celebrated Workingman's Band", but Lloyd is not listed among its members (Alf Edwards: concertina; Colin Ross: fiddle, Jim Bray: double bass).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Celebrated Working Man
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Dec 12 - 01:01 AM

Thanks, Codger. No, Bert was no sort if instrumentalist ~~ or are you making a norrible pun on 'et al'?! Jim Bray was the one I couldn't remember -- or, culpably, take the trouble to go downstairs to check! And of course it was Alf, not Ali, on concertina. Otherwise I got it spot-on, didderneye! 1 out of 3. Cor!

~M~