|
|||||||
Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. In Mudcat MIDIs: MARGERY GREY (Helen Hartness Flanders and George Brown's Vermont Folk-songs and Ballads (1931): as noted from Mr. Orlon Merrill of Charlesworth (formerly Pittsburgh), New Hampshire, c.1930. This may not be the same tune used by Margaret MacArthur) |
Share Thread
|
Subject: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: GUEST,dewainewakeman@aol.com Date: 25 May 00 - 02:22 AM |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: KathWestra Date: 25 May 00 - 10:47 AM Margaret MacArthur is the person who has brought this incredible New England true-story ballad to light -- and life. She has recorded it on one of her recent CDs. I'll send her an e-mail to confirm which one, and ask her if she'd be willing to post the lyrics here. Kathy |
Subject: Lyr Add: MARGERY GREY: A LEGEND OF VERMONT (Dorr) From: GUEST,Margmac Date: 25 May 00 - 10:40 PM Margery Grey A Legend of Vermont by Julia C. Dorr Tune: traditional As sung by me, Margaret MacArthur, on cs Vermont Ballads and Broadsides, 1989. Am now working on cover to have it burnt into a Cd as last pressing of cs is nearly gone. Full booklet comes with either cs or potential CD. Thanks Kathy for posting notice of this request
Fair the cabin walls were gleaming
In her arms a laughing baby
Thus they parted, strong and steady
But when he reached the clearing
Back he sped, but night was falling,
With a murmured prayer, a shudder
Torches flared, and fires were kindled
Woe! Woe! for pretty Margery!
But in sudden terror, pausing,
Twilight deepened into darkness,
Then a shout! And in the distance
Oh, the days so long and dreary!
Dawned the fourth relentless morning,
Three days more she bore it with her,
Down she sat beside that grave
Till at length the stern life tyrant
Till July and August brought her
One chill morning in October
Wondering glances fell upon her,
Then she told her piteous story
But she said she had not crossed it
Oh,the joy bells, sweet their ringing |
Subject: Lyr Add: MARGERY GREY: A LEGEND OF VERMONT (Dorr) From: Wolfgang Date: 26 May 00 - 04:46 AM Thanks a lot for posting that beautiful ballad. I just have reposted it the way I guess you wanted it to look. Wolfgang
MARGERY GREY A LEGEND OF VERMONT |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: GUEST,dewainewakeman@aol.com Date: 26 May 00 - 06:15 AM Thanks everyone for the info on Margerie Grey. Hope to see the ORIGINAL ballad posted here. The original is about 5 pages long. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: GUEST,margmac Date: 26 May 00 - 09:16 PM Wolfgang, thanks for putting the verses in order.I'm not sure how they got strung out. In Flanders 1932 Vermont Folksongs and Ballads this covers 7 and a half pages. I learned it from the singing of Bertha Cahpin of Waterbury,who left out 2 of the verses that appear in Flanders book, 2 verses that don't really advance the story. In the booklet accompanying my cs Vermont Ballads and Broadsides the text covers 5 and three quarter pages. If anyone has Julia Dorr's poetry they will have access to the original poem, rather than the ballad that passed into Margaret MacArthurtradition not only in Vermont but throughout New England |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Gypsy Date: 28 May 00 - 12:35 AM Interesting, my print out came to 5 pages. Any chance of telling what "traditional" tune this is? Is tune the same as title, and if so, where to find musics? What a fabulous ballad! |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: GUEST,margmac Date: 28 May 00 - 09:24 PM The tune I sing on cs Vermont Ballads & Broadsides I learned from a tape of traditional Vermont singer Chapin. This tape was from the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection. The song from a different singer is included in Flander's 1932 book . I could never have learned it without hearing it sung. Margaret MacArthur |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Gypsy Date: 29 May 00 - 10:49 PM Thanks for your response. I will have to go to the local (yeah right, ONLY) music dealer and order your cd. Looks to be the way to learn it. Any one else out there that might have the sheet music? |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: KathWestra Date: 30 May 00 - 11:11 AM Gypsy -- I'm sure that you can order Margaret's CD directly from her(that way the musician reaps all the benefit of a self-produced labor of love). Send me a private e-mail (or maybe Margaret will post info. here in this thread) and I'll tell you how to get in touch with her. Also, Camsco Music is a source of hard-to-find mail-order folk music -- AND a portion of the sales benefit the Mudcat! Click on the jumpin' catfish logo on the front page of this forum where it says "support the Mudcat". Kathy |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Gypsy Date: 30 May 00 - 11:00 PM You brilliant woman! Thank you so much! |
Subject: Lyr Add: MARGARIE GRAY From: GUEST,Dewey Date: 31 Dec 01 - 03:56 AM Here’s the version I know. Some of the words are different. This version also includes the extra verses (more than two) Margmac referred to, and a few difference phrases here and there. I do not know if my version is original and completely accurate however, as it was taped and sung by a friend who knew the ballad and mailed it to me.
Fair the cabin walls were gleaming in the sunbeam’s golden glow,
And upon the humble threshold stood a young wife, Margarie Gray,
In her arms, a laughing baby with its father’s dark hair played,
“I am going to the wheatlot,” with a smile said Robert Gray.
Then she smiled a cheerful answer ere she spoke a single word,
“No,” she said, “I’ll take the baby and go stay with Annie Brown.
Thus they parted strong and steady. All day long he labored on,
And when lengthening shadows warned him that the sun was in the west,
But when he had reached the clearing of their friend a mile away,
“She is safe at home,” said Annie, “for she left and hour ago,
Back he sped but night was falling, and the path he scarce could see.
When at last he gained the cabin, black and desolate it stood.
With a murmured prayer, a shudder, and a sob of anguish wild,
Soon the scattered settlers gathered, all from clearings far and near,
Torches flared and fires were kindled, and the horn’s long peal rang out,
But in vain their sad endeavor, night by night and day by day,
Woe, Oh Woe! For pretty Margarie, with the baby on her arm,
With a lip and brow untroubled, and a heart at utter rest,
But in sudden terror pausing, gazed she round in blank dismay.
God of mercies! She had wandered from the pathway. Not a tree,
Twilight deepened into darkness, and the stars came out on high.
Round about her in the midnight, stealthily the shadows crept,
Hark! A shout, and in the distance, she could she a torch’s gleam,
Then a shout and then another, but she shrieked and sobbed in vain,
Morning came and with the sunbeams, hope and courage rose once more,
So she soothed her wailing baby, and when faint from want of food,
Oh, the days were long and dreary! Oh, the nights more dreary still!
More than once a smoldering fire in some sheltered nook she found,
Dawned the fourth relentless morning, and the sun’s unpitying eye
All night long its plaintive moaning wrung the heart of Margarie Gray.
Three long days she bore it with her on her rough and toilsome way,
Then she knew that she must leave it in the wilderness to sleep,
Dumb with grief she sat beside it. Ah! How long she never knew.
When the skies were brass above her and the earth was cold and dim,
But alas! Stern life, the tyrant, bade her take her burden up,
Up she rose, still tramping onward, through the forest far and wide,
‘Til July and August brought her fruit and berries from their store,
‘Til the maples and the birches donned their robes of red and gold,
Was she doomed to roam forever o’er this desolate earth,
Sometimes from her dreary pathway wolves or black bear turned away,
One chill morning in October, when the trees were brown and bare,
Walked a gaunt and pallid woman whose disheveled locks of brown,
Wandering glances fell upon her. Women veiled their modest eyes
“‘Tis some crazy one,” they whispered. Back her tangled locks she tossed.
Then she told her piteous story in a strange disjointed way,
“But the river!” said they pondering. “We are on the other side.
But she said she had not crossed it in her strange erratic course.
In the dark Canadian forest, and then blindly tramping on
Oh, the joy bells sweet their ringing on the frosty autumn air!
Oh, the wondrous golden sunset on the blessed October day, My version misses one verse however, that thanks to Margmac I now have. There are close to 50 verses to this tune so it is a great one to play on open stage when the emcee says you have but only one number left before getting booted off the stage. As far as the melody, it is similar to the Hymn: What a friend we have in Jesus. (But this, however, is not the TRUE melody) But you could probably use it as a crude makeshift until learning the RIGHT one)
I will gladly mail a tape of the melody to anyone desiring it for the cost of postage if they are interested! |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 31 Dec 01 - 01:02 PM Margaret referred to the set in Helen Hartness Flanders and George Brown's Vermont Folk-songs and Ballads (1931): this was noted from Mr. Orlaon Merrill of Charlesworth (formerly Pittsburgh), New Hampshire, c.1930. He learned it as a boy of eight from one George Abbott, who in his turn had learned the tune from Mrs. Bern Watts of Pittsburgh, and the text from Miss Alice Woods of Beecher's Falls, Vermont. Mrs. Julia C.R. Orr's poem appeared in her Poems (Lippincott's, 1872) and, according to Flanders and Brown, was first printed in The Northern Gazette about a hundred years after the event happened. I've made a midi of the tune, as sung by Mr. Merrill, from the notation given in the Flanders/Brown book. Until it gets to the Mudcat Midi Pages, it can be heard via the South Riding Folk Network site: I have no idea how close, if at all, it may be to Margaret MacArthur's tune. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: GUEST,Dewey Date: 04 Jan 02 - 12:29 AM Hope nobody minds or is offended by me posting the additional lyrics. This is my favorite ballad of all time Bar None! and the melody is simply beautiful. The original peom is far too long however (best to skip a few verses when singing this one). You will quickly lose your audience if you don't. Thanks for the link Malcolm, hope this Ballad makes Digital Tradition very soon. It is a very very worthy ballad and deserves being posted here. Dewey |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Desert Dancer Date: 04 Jan 02 - 01:04 PM You can contact Margaret Macarthur and order recordings through her web site. ~ Becky in Tucson |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Stewart Date: 04 Jan 02 - 02:11 PM There's a different version "Margery Grey" by Steve Gillette in SingOut! vol.45 #2 Summer 2001. The tune is different - midi on SO web site here. From the intro in SO: "The poem, in Mrs. Door's words, was 'founded on a half a dozen lines that caught my eye in some newspaper simply stating the fact that a woman of the pioneers, being lost in the woods and unable to cross the Connecticut River, had wandered northward round its source and come down the other side.'" S. in Seattle |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: GUEST,Dewey Date: 04 Jan 02 - 05:48 PM I think the public has had enough shameless plugs for the Margmac CD in this thread. If anyone wishes to learn the tune from me or anyone else, please let me know as it won't cost you a dime. I do not take credit for the ballad, nor should anyone else for that matter. I am also not interested in making a buck off of someone else's work and remaking it as my own. I only added to the thread because the original words posted were inaccurate. And I wished for the ballad to be spread to as many people as possible and in its correct form. Often times artists will develope their own versions so as to create new ownership. Sorry if I've ofeended Margmac or any of her supporters. It disappoints me however when artists develope their own versons and promote them, as it weakens and waters down the original ballad. Cheat books work this way, everyone is so fearful of copyright, they begin bastardizing original songs. In the end there are hundreds of different versions, as everyone tries to claim ownership to his or her version. My goal here was to promulgate the ballad in as close to its original as possible, without claiming authority over it so as to save it for posterity. This is what I would like to see the mudcat cafe primarily used for, spreading good music and stories among friends who care about the integrity of the music, and who are eager to share all and everything they know without money or strings attached. Again, I don't mean to offend Margmac or anyone else. I just like to see a spirit of cooperation develope her in promting the ballad and posting it here, not in having it cost someone $20.00 to learn soemthing that should belong to all of us.
|
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Margarie Gray. Ballad. From: Desert Dancer Date: 05 Jan 02 - 02:24 AM Dewey, you may not "mean to offend" anyone, but you sure comes across pretty offensively. It's possible to volunteer your assistance without being critical of others. Margaret Macarthur cited her sources clearly. And in 1931 Helen Flanders, in Vermont Folksongs & Ballads, wrote that there were many oral versions extant, and offered one. I'm not sure then what "original version" you may refer to -- you've already said that the original poem is too long to use. In the world of folk song a definitive version is a rare thing. I offered Margaret Macarthur's web site as a point of information given that there had been an earlier inquiry concerning where to purchase her recording of the song. Kath Westra plugged the recording above because she thinks it's worthwhile, not because she profits from it. And if you think profit is Margaret's motive for recording, you're greatly mistaken about her and about the profitability of traditional music! ~ Becky in Tucson |
Share Thread: |
Subject: | Help |
From: | |
Preview Automatic Linebreaks Make a link ("blue clicky") |