Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s

Subject: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: GUEST,Dee
Date: 14 May 00 - 06:56 PM

Stumbled on this site while surfing the web for the words to On Top Of Spaghetti for my seven year old. It prompted me to pull out these old song ballads written down in the 1890s by my great grandparents who lived in western Kentucky. I typed in a couple of the lyrics to see if it was popular music, but didn't get any matches. I wonder what the possibility of finding out whether these songs were popular ones that they just wrote down or something they wrote up themselves. Not looking for any claims to fame, only to glean more insight into these ancestors. Does anyone have any suggestions? Many thanks.

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 May 00 - 07:03 PM

Hi, Dee, welcome to the Mudcat. Did you type any of the main lyrics into the combo-SuperSearch box, right at the top of the threads, or just in the DigiTrad database.

If not, you might try a keyword search there, as both threads on such subjects and whatever is in the DT will be searched. Are there any titles of any kind? If so, start a thread for each one, with the title in the name of the thread.

It sounds liek you ahev some neat stuff adn you will find a lot of people here who will know a lot more than me. Good luck,

kat

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 May 00 - 07:06 PM

Oh, and please excuse the typos and lack of question marks, etc. I was kind of rushed! Sorry...

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: Lesley N.
Date: 14 May 00 - 08:14 PM

Dover has a great book of sheet music "Favorite Songs of the Nineties" by Robert A. Fremont. At $17.95 it's a great buy (and you can help Mudcat out by buying it through their link). It's ISBN 0-486-21536-9.

There are 89 Songs so I won't list them here!

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 14 May 00 - 10:32 PM

Hello Dee,

I grew up in western Kentucky...we call it "God's Country."

Mary

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 May 00 - 03:17 AM

Hi, Dee - if you post what you know of the songs here, maybe we can give you a hand. It's best to give us everything you know about the songs, not just the titles. Just make sure to put a <br> line break at the end of each line, so the lines don't scrunch together. ("Scrunch" is a technical term. A line break looks like this: <br> ).
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 May 00 - 09:36 AM

Try the Lester S. Levy Collection at Johns Hopkins: http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/

You can search by title, first line, or key word. Sorry, I haven't mastered the blue link.

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: richardw
Date: 15 May 00 - 12:34 PM

Also try the Library of Congress song sheet collection, about 4500. Although I think most of the song sheet craze was over by then. However, you may find that the songs of that we think are 1890s are in fact earlier. For instance, Listen to the Mocking bird, which I remember my Dad singing, (though he had some versions my mother didin't appreciate) was written in 1854.

Sorry, I cannot find my link, though I know it begins with www.loc....

richard

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: GUEST,Dee
Date: 16 May 00 - 10:06 AM

Many thanks to those of you who responded with suggestions. I tried the super-search as per the first suggestion and had some luck this time. I was able to find a match to at least three. There were two that I couldn't find a match to, but I feel reasonably certain that she wasn't a composer, but I do know that my second great grandmother did enjoy the music of her day.

The best part was being able to hear the simple tune of the songs directly from my computer! What a neat twist on preserving something of my past. I have a copy of the one and only photograph that survives of grandmother Alice. I got it out and showed it to my daughters and then played the song on the computer. "This is your third great grandmother and this is a song she used to listen to," I told them.

The trouble I had when I first tried was that the titles Alice had written down were different than what was in the database and some words were a little different but that can be attributed to regional differences I guess. Would there be any benefit in having these different versions deposited in some repository somewhere?

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: GUEST,Milton K. Darling
Date: 16 May 00 - 12:51 PM

Dee,

We are just a bunch of folksong lovers, and all dying to know what the songs are--please, if there is even a little mercy in your heart, tell us what you were looking for!!!

Subject: RE: Help: Folksongs written in the 1890s
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 May 00 - 03:34 PM

Hi, Dee - when the differences in lyrics are minor, we don't include them in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database. However, this forum is an open roundtable discussion, and we're interested in anything that interests you. If a song is in the database any your version is a bit different, your version may help me work up somehting that fits my singing style better than what I've been able to find elsewhere.
So, go ahead and post them lyrics. We'd like to see what you have. Maybe they won't be included in the database, but we'd sure like to see them.
-Joe Offer-