D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?

Subject: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 01:40 AM

I got this neat little story from one of my favourite magazines: The Folklife Centre News, put out by the American Folklife Centre in The Library of Congress. It's a great article and I'll just summarize it for you. here goes:

Todd Harvey, a well qualified young man with an interest in Bob Dylan wants to find out the poop on Dylan's "With God On Our Side". He goes to The American Folklife Centre's reading room. In a very condensed nutshell here's what happened.

It's old news that Dylan STOLE Domenic Behan's tune which he wrote for his song "The Patriot Game". Hell, Behan complained about the theft for many years.

With some suggestions from the great songfinder Joe Hickerson, Todd discovers that:

Burl Ives RECORDED a version of The Nightingale, using exactly the same tune claimed by Behan......in 1952, and toured Britain, long before "Patriot Game" was written.

Case closed? Not so.

JO STAFFORD (American Pop singer) recorded the VERY SAME SONG in 1948!

So Bobby was just one of a number of "borrowers", and Domenic? Hmmmmmmm.

Great article, Great Magazine. Thank you Joe H. for puttin' me on the mailing list!

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Sourdough
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 03:00 AM

I don't know why I get such a kick out of a story like that. I guess it is the way that it demonstrates (giving everyone the benefit of the doubt) the folk process at work. It is like seeing evolution taking place before your eyes. It's possible that Behan thought it was an original tune and his complaints against Bob Dylan were sincere even if wrongly based.

I think what the story does show is that all those people were smart enough to recognize a a good, evocative melody when they heard it.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 03:24 AM

I'd be surprised if Behan hadn't known the tune was traditional: he fequently used or adapted well-known tunes, like so many other songwriters. But I expect he was pretty pissed off that Dylan's words was a spoof or parody of his. Alternatively, he could have decided imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, but I doubt it somehow!

Many of Dylan's songs took a trad song as a starting point--nothing wrong with that, in principle; but when does "borrowing" become "ripping off"? Dylan said he didn't just change songs for the sake of it, but he didn't actually explain why he did it. But then it never bothered me much at the time!

Steve

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 09:20 AM

He probably just did it because it worked, and it felt right to him at the time. That is also the folk process.

- LH

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 11:02 AM

Dominic was very bitter about what he saw a Dylan's rip-off, of his work. Even at the release of Dylan's "Biograph" set, he was still writing to the papers about it. He was well aware by this time that the tune predated "Patriot Game", as it had been the subject of much heated debate in the Vicky Bar and elsewhere. As far as Dominic was concerned it was from him that Dylan took the tune, and that was that.

Much of what Dylan wrote, especially the tunes, for "Freewheelin" and "Times" can be traced back to traditional song and blues. Someone described him, at about the time of his first visit to the UK, as a sponge, (ie he absorbed everything).

Dominic was prolific, and he did adapt traditional tunes to his own words, as well as write his own. I think that he would have liked Dylan to have given him as the source of the tune, or at least have had Words - Dylan Tune - Adapted. It was Dylan taking credit that stuck in his craw.

Dominic had this to say in a note to another song -Roddy McCorley - "Woody Guthrie, the great American folk-singer and ballad-maker, warned us never to take a great song and try to write anither lyric to it. And that's what is so wrong with "Sean South Of Garryowen".

From my personal experience I can remember writing a song with, what I was convinced was, my own tune, only to find Ewan MacVicar include it in an article with the words "..these words are sung to the tune of..." and damn him he was right.
,
love, john

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 11:35 AM

DITA quoted Dominic Behan as saying: "Woody Guthrie, the great American folk-singer and ballad-maker, warned us never to take a great song and try to write anither lyric to it. And that's what is so wrong with 'Sean South Of Garryowen'."

Fer goodness sakes, that's almost all Woody Guthrie did, was take great songs and write another lyric to it! I know he evidently wrote A FEW tunes, but most of 'em were preexisting!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 11:53 AM

Also from the article (I'm remembering now, not reading it directly) was that Dylan's introduction to "With God on Our Side" mentioned Jean Redpath's use of the tune. The most probable speculation is that he first heard "Patriot game" from the Clancys, whom he was buddies with.

Hard to picture Woody Guthrie saying what Behan claims. As Dave rightly points out, ALL his songs used existing tunes, which he freely admitted...and I believe encouraged.

I was going to add a joke to my post:

Jo Stafford eh, let's be thankful Dylan didn't use "Shrimp Boats are a comin" as the basis for one of his songs!

Then it occurred to me that literally nobody around here would be old enough to remember her hit song! Hell, I was only three!

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: MMario
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 11:57 AM

I remember Shrimp Boats a-comin' quite well - and I'm eight years younger then you! (But then again - I grew up in a town 20 years behind the times)

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 12:11 PM

I would be surprised if Woody said that, given that Woody deliberately wrote lyrics to old tunes all the time, in the spirit of Joe Hill, so that people could pick up a broadside with lyrics about a current event, and sing them--

At any rate, I don't have a great deal of sympathy for Behan,whose idea seemed to be that once he took something from the public domain, no one else could use it--sort of saying that"The Folk Process Stops Here"--

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,djh
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 12:27 PM

The folk process is a murky bizniz ever since they invented that pesky Victrola and copyright law.I guess we should all be writing "navel gazing, gravity of me" stuff

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 12:39 PM

his is a quiz, the name that doesn't belong is Dylan. The others could sing.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,djh
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 12:45 PM

Dick , Bob can sing as much as he wants to as far as I am concerned.
On a related note I thought it was humorless when Dylan sued Hootie and the Blowfish for building a song in tribute to him from snatches of lyrics from the BLOOD ON THE TRACKS album. They did it affectionately even if poorly and they mentioned him in the song, so as to nod and wink. Bob has spent much of his career "borrowing" a thing or two, admittedly more creatively than Hootie,but, borrowed just the same.
Another example of THE FOLK PROCESS STOPS HERE.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 12:52 PM

DICK, wash your mouth out with soap! I've got a Domenic Behan album, and he sings so sharp he makes my hair stand on end. 'Course so did Bert Lloyd, and I love his singing.

'Course if it WAS a quiz, the question might read "What did these artists have in common"?

Answer: They all recorded songs about fish!

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 01:07 PM

Don't sing twice, Bob, that's all right.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: paddymac
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 01:24 PM

I've got a copy of one of the Kingston Trio records on which they present their version of Behan's "The Patriot Game." I was a big fan of theirs when they were "au currant", but don't recall ever hearing them do that song. It both surprised and amused me that they would even do the song.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 01:25 PM

What about 'Good as I been to you?' More like 'good as everybody has been to me'. It seems that that album was heavily 'influenced' by other singers arrangements/renditions of the songs, but they don't get a mention, or, I imagine, a share of the royalties. I hope I'm wrong about that as one of them is Nic Jones.

Oh and we had shrimp boats over here as well, Rick, sometime after 1948. Perhaps they take that long to cross the Atlantic.

Les

Subject: Behan said Woody said what?
From: GUEST,ADG
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 02:12 PM

Somebody sez that Dominic Behan said: "Woody Guthrie, the great American folk-singer and ballad-maker, warned us never to take a great song and try to write anither lyric to it."

It seems to me that anybody who would think Woody would have ever said something like that never listened to Woody.

I remember one time at Newport after Mother Maybelle played "Wildwood Flower" somebody said that she must have ripped off Woody's "Sinking of the Reuben James."

ADG

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Little Hawk, lost my cookie...
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 03:17 PM

LOL! Dick, you gotta wash your ears out too, I think. I've seen Bob in concert numerous times, and he can sing most singers clean off the stage. He sings like a goddamn hurricane! You just don't have the ear for it, ya poor deluded sap... :-)

I can't stand the taste of beer or whisky. Similar situation. It's all a matter of taste, that's all.

To say Bob Dylan can't sing is asinine. To say that you don't like his style of singing, on the other hand, and don't find it tuneful, is perfectly appropriate and unobjectionable...to me, at least.

- LH

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 03:36 PM

Talking about borrowing "Who was Robert Zimmerman anyway?" Jock

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 06:36 PM

Well, damn me - I was right for once!

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 07:08 PM

JO STAFFORD did a truly beautiful LP -- 33 and 1/3 rpm -- JO STAFFORD---SINGS AMERICAN FOLK SONGS for Capital Records (T-1653) with tremendously lush orchestrations done by her husband--Paul Weston. As much as I love the pure renditions done for collectors by the rural folk, this album is simply exquisite. 90% of it is just A-#1. Ms Stafford did an Lp of Scottish songs with only about 40% of the songs being gems. But her "Shenandoah" is pure brilliance.

This would be my pick for an album I'd take to adesert island if I could ony pick 5 or 10 to take with me.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 09:48 PM

Robert Zimmerman was Abe Zimmerman's son wasn't he? In some little place called Hibbing, Minnesota, a former mining town fallen on hard times. They say he sang like an angel in junior high school...very pure choirboy voice. He was a slightly chubby little middle-class kid, who loved Hank Williams, and sang his songs. Later he got into Little Richard in a big way, and played rock and roll on the piano. He then formed a high school band called "The Golden Chords" I think it was, and shocked the whole school by playing the loudest electric music anyone had ever heard in Hibbing. They could hardly believe it. The more rebellious students were impressed (they hadn't suspected that quiet little Robert had such a wild side till then), while others were just astonished. The principal was horrified, and Zimmerman's band never was allowed on the assembly hall stage again. I wonder what ever became of that kid since? Has anyone heard? Was he a childhood friend of Bobby Neuwirth?

- LH

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 Jul 01 - 11:37 PM

I understand that he was very fond of poor old Johnny Ray, as well--

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 12:54 AM

Rick: I don't just read the political threads! I remember Jo Stafford very well, and felt that she was the best of the "girl" singers in the 40's. "Shrimp Boats," I remember very well, and I'd love to hear the LP Art referred to.

Was the title of the song she recorded in 1948 the same as the one recorded by Burl Ives?

LH: as we say so often on the Mudcat, everyone has a right to his/her own opinion. I personally am of the opinion that Bob Dylan sings a tad better than Andy Devine.

DougR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 01:53 AM

Andy Devine!! "Hey Wild Bill, wait for me"!

By the way, does anyone know that prior to being "Jingles" on the Wild Bill Hickock TV show, Andy was a country comic stooge on Jack Benny's radio show.

Well even though it has NUTHIN' to do with the origins of "With God On Our Side" I'm going to go against the wisdom of Dick and Doug (who I respect greatly, since they're both at least forty years older than me (I) and state that Bob Dylan's singing is KEWL, AWESOME, and in fact ROCKS!

Oh, the song both Burl and Jo recorded was "The Nightingale".

A brief trivia question. Probably too easy, but may make you think for a minute or two anyway.....

What was the song (and name the artist if you can) that Woody listened to, that morphed into "JackHammer John"?

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 02:22 AM

Well, Rick, maybe it is age that makes the difference. You youn'uns listened to so much Rock and Roll in your formative years, it probably affected your ear drums. I always felt that you were a pretty level headed guy, but I guess that hasn't got much to do with your ears.

Dylan? "KEWL?" "AWSOME," "ROCKS?" What is the younger generation coming to?

DougR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 02:36 AM

Actually Doug, I'm ashamed to say it but before I was hooked on folk, my favourite song was Dean Martin's "Memories Are made of This"! I remember as a very small tyke, hearing this on the radio (along with Vaughn Monroe, Don Rondo, Rusty Draper, Julius La Rosa, Georgia Gibbs, Kitty Kallen, and yes, the aforementioned Jo Stafford) and for the record....these people did NOT ROCK!

Heard Buddy Holly and Elvis, and I might have become a rocker but I was blown away by "Hang down your head Tom Dooley..."!

My personal protest. If some are gonna start spellin' "cool" as "kewl", I'm gonna spell it "Kuhl". Lemme see if it catches on. Same with "Rawks".

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 03:12 AM

My name it means nothin',
My age it means less,
The country I's born in
Is called the Midwest
   Why don't you hurry, hurry, hurry home?
   Why don't you hurry, hurry, hurry home?
Look here, my name it means nothin',
My age it meas less!

Hey. it works!!

Steve (who remembers it well too)

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: pavane
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 06:14 AM

Re Claiming credit for traditional tunes etc. I remember reading once that a singer (was it Pete Seeger?) was asked, after recording a song, who composed the tune, and replied Traditional. The other guy then said, well for Chr*st's sake claim at least that you arranged it, otherwise the record company get to keep ALL the money. So the motive for claiming credit seems to have been that you get paid more, and otherwise it's the company who benefit.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Tedham Porterhouse
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 09:34 AM

Howie Bursen's new CD lists a 1940 copyright date by Geordie Music, Jean Ritchie's company, for "Pretty Saro," a song that I've always known to be traditional.

Many of the songs that A.P. Carter "wrote" and recorded by the Carter Family as early as 1927 were also traditional. So, copyrighting traditional material is certainly nothing new.

And I'm reasonably sure that neither John or Allan Lomax was really a co-writer of "Goodnight Irene."

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 09:48 AM

I think what really made Behan mad was that Dylan was attacking the whole political setup of the song.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 09:59 AM

Doug - I have absolutely no idea what Andy Devine sounds like, I'm sorry to say...so I don't know quite what to make of the comparison between him and Dylan.

If you listen to just one example: Bob Dylan singing the song "Blind Willie McTell" (it's on a Dylan collection)...see if you can borrow it or something...

Then tell me that is not GOOD blues singing! I dare ya.

I've seen & heard Bob sing well, very well, not so well, badly, tunefully, tunelessly, off key, on key, pure, gruff, strong, weak, and every other way imaginable...he's unpredictable. (unlike, for example, Burl Ives or Gordon Lightfoot who always sound the same...not to say they don't sound good)

But when Dylan is good he's very good (and that's at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the time throughout most of his career). Lightfoot is a great admirer of Dylan's writing and his performance skills. That should tell you something.

But like you say, it's still a matter of opinion, and I still hate the taste of beer and whiskey, and don't consider pizza to be real food, but rather some crude form of entertainment. We all have our prejudices.

- LH

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: LR Mole
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 10:00 AM

Of course it works: "AND now I'm a part of the PATE-ri-ot game..."or, even:"REE-member that they, too, have GOD on their side..."
"Jo Stafford: a link on the folk process chain! "I dreamed I saw Jo Staff'rd last night/A-boatin' with the shrimp..."

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 10:52 AM

Rick,

"Browns Ferry Blues"

Art (What did I win?)

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 12:19 PM

You better be careful, Art, Rick might send it to you! :>)

DourR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 06 Jul 01 - 01:39 PM

Steve Parkes....Best laugh of the week for me! Good on yah.

The Winner...ART THIEME!!!

The prize: 50 brand new CDs of various teenage girls breathily singing about their love lives and hard times! Oops, sorry. Those have to go into the "Folk" section at radio CIUT.

How 'bout my hearty congratulations, and a couple of airplays from "The Older I get..." complete with hero-worshiping introductions! Ha, Ha!

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 10:10 AM

This has been a most interesting thread for me, not least because of the musical memories from Art and Rick. Art, you are quite right - I had that album and it was GOOD. Technically speaking few popular singers were ever as good as Jo Stafford. I remember some joke records she made as an off-key country singer. Wonderful. Can anybody recall the name she used for that character? And Rick; my God, I never thought I'd hear the names of Rusty Draper and Julius La Rosa again. They were part of my youth. Didn't Julius La Rosa sing 'From the Vine came the Grape'? But to get to the Dominic Behan story; in the early '60s I was running a folk club and had booked Dominic as guest singer. The building the club was housed in had a small restaurant as well as a concert room. Dominic arrived in time for us to have a meal before the club started. We had a pleasant conversation until I mentioned that I'd just bought a Burl Ives album called 'In The Quiet of the Night' on which he (Ives) sang 'The Nightingale'. I asked him if that song was the tune for 'Patriot Game'. His smile never wavered but his eyes bored right through me and he said, in a voice that brooked no contradiction, "I wrote that tune". I put the reaction down to my naivety and said no more. That night Dominic treated a capacity audience to a great show during which he announced "Here is a song that your club organiser thinks I didn't write' and proceeded to sing 'The Patriot Game'. He said it with a grin and our subsequent meetings were always amicable. But I never forgot the first time I met Dominic Behan.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 02:37 PM

Wow! That's an interesting story! Performers can be "touchy," right? It's difficult for me to understand how Behan could look you right in the eye, and state that he wrote a tune he did not write! Amazing.

DougR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 06:34 PM

Why Doug? I wrote "Tie A Yellow Ribbon"!

The article in the magazine I mentioned gave Domenic a bit of slack by saying "after a while, things get hazy"....but holy cow, that might be after thirty years, not THREE. Great story Burl.

Question: Domenic is remembered chiefly for that one song (and for apparently being "difficult") Did he write anything else that's notable?

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 06:50 PM

Rick - So you're the jerk who foisted that fecking song on the world! Hang your head in shame!!! You note that Dylan did not steal that one...I wonder why? :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 07:27 PM

Cinderella G. Stump

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 07:28 PM

Oh yeah..."Tym Tay Shun"

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:20 AM

Wow, Rick! You wrote, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon?" I'm really awed now!

DougR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:43 AM

Art,

I think Jo Stafford was very knowledgeable about folk music. I think she had rural roots in the tradition of the music. I remember something about her being a folklorist, too, and learning songs from her family. Don't know if I've got that right but it seems to me I read that somewhere.

The lady could really sing!

Frank

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 03:08 AM

Was it Jo or Jim Stafford who recorded "Don't Go Near The Shrimp Boats Mother, Father's Coming Home With The Crabs?"

Seamus

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 05:32 PM

I'm just waiting for Rick to say HE wrote it, Seamus. :>) DougR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 07:43 PM

Of course you're awed, Doug, all conservatives are...

Oh wait...that's "odd"...

(GRIN!)

- LH

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:00 PM

Burl,

Jonathan and Darlene Edwards was the psuedo-names Jo Stafford and Paul Weston used for the amazing off-key albums they did. And it was really hard to sing off key like that all the way through songs. Those were brilliant LPs and I think they are out on CD. I sold a ton of those when I worked at Rose Records on Wabash in Chicago back in the early '60s while singing nights. (Some good memories.) Roy, if you want a cassette of those two albums I'll get 'em to ya. Lemme know??!!

Frank,

I don't know about her academic interest in folk songs, But her renditions of the slow melancholy songs were breathtaking. (Not so for the up tempo things I didn't think.) Paul Weston's arrangements often reminded me of Aaron Copland's score for the film Our Town. It's my favorite thing of his. (Copland's)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:03 PM

Burl,

I meant the Jo Stafford albums---American Folksongs and the scottish one too. Not Jonathan and Darlene.

Art

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:23 PM

Jonathan and Darlene! Still laugh at it today Art. Darn right it's HARD to do that.

Rick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,John Hardly
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 12:01 AM

I have a recording of Cinderella G. Stump(Jo Stafford) doing "Tym TAY Shun" that's why I thought that to be the answer to burl's Q.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: DougR
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 12:20 AM

Those LPs were a scream. Florence Foster Jenkins did the same thing with classical music, but not intentionally.

DougR

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 07:01 PM

I believe my father still has a stack of Jo Stafford records in the basement. I will have to see what's there. She was his favorite singer as a young man coming home from WWII.

Mick

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Keiran in London
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 06:20 AM

I've just picked up this thread. I would love to know what was the original song sung to the tune of "Patriot Game". Every answer on the internet is wrong! 'The Merry Month Of May' (or Barbara Allen) is to a different metre, in spite of what Liam Clnacy said. So is the Thomas Dekker poem 'The Merry Month Of May'. The Nightingale/Bold Grenadier is the same metre, but the stresses are all wrong.

Has anyone got the faintest idea?

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 06:58 AM

I've said this before on another thread but Dylan built his song around Dominic's Patriot Game. Compare the following verse:

My name it means nothin',
My age it means less,
The country I's born in
Is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there
God's laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on it's side

to Dominic's:

My name is O'Hanlon,
I'm just seventeen,
My home is in Monaghan
'Twas there I was weaned
I was taught all my life cruel England to blame
Which makes me a part of the Patriot Game.



It's obvious Dylan heard Dominic's song before writing his own and he probably didn't know the tune was trad. I discussed Dominic's song with Dylan before he wrote With God on our Side.


In answer to the last posting, I would say the original song is The Nightingale, melody as per Jo Stafford and Burl Ives. People sometimes confuse this Nightingale with the other trad ' ... and they both sat down together to hear the Nightingale sing ...'

Also Guthrie's 1913 Massacre could be the source melody.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 07:27 AM

It was the version of The Nightingale,or The Bold Grenadier that begins "One morning, one morning, one morning in May, I spied a young couple a-making their way"; IIRC Bonnie Sartin recorded it with the Yetties: different tune and text from the "Kissed so sweet & comforting" variant. I once mentioned this in the course of a Guardian correspondence on the song as the source of the tune of The Patriot Game, and Dominic replied by admitting it had been the source of the air he had used; I still have this correspondence on file somewhere, I think: so Dominic seems to have {if may so put it} changed his tune over the years.

Ah, yes, Jo Stafford. It was Allentown Jail that I always particularly loved her singing.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Hotenanny
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 11:22 AM

Whilst in this frame of mind does anybody have any thoughts/insights into the following old pop material;

Johnny Ray "Let's Walk This a Way" = Leadbelly "Ha Ha This a Way"

Danny Kaye "The Thing" (if that was the title) = The Lincolnshire Poacher

Josh White "Foggy Foggy Dew"    =    Harry Cox "Foggy Foggy Dew"

Hoot

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 12:00 PM

The Josh White & Harry Cox are just two versions of a widespread song ~~ see the intro to James Reeves' collection of Sharp's MSs, The Idiom Of The People, where he discusses possible symbolisms of the 'dew'. (Is Josh White 'pop' in same sense as Johnny Ray, BTW?)

The Thing had a tune similar to Lincs Poacher. The text had some resemblances to The Farm Servant, {the euphemisitic 'knock knock-knock'} which I learned from Bert Lloyd & sing on my Youtube, also on recent Mudcat 'Earth' CD.

~M~

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Will Fly
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 12:35 PM

My favourite Jo Stafford tracks were "Seratun Yob" and "Tim-Tay-Shun" where she sang under the name 'Cinderella Stump'.

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 02:42 PM

Will,
you omitted the essential 'G'. Wasn't it Cinderella G Stump with Red Ingle and the Un-Natural Seven? I loved that 78 too.
Do you know the origin of the comment on the disc "O.K then show us your muscles" ?
Was this also the same group that made "Cigareets and Whiskey" ? I can't remember.

Hoot

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 03:36 PM

The 'show us your muscles' line surely came from Cigareets & Whusky ~~ from the I-wanna-hear-Temptation guy...

~M~

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 05:18 PM

You could well be right M. It's some years since I've heard either disc.

Hoot

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Will Fly
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 06:44 PM

"Somebody get that bum outa here..."

"I'm sorry, stranger, but we don't play that kind of music here."
"OK then - show us your muscles."

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 07:44 AM

Will,what I have heard from a New York musician is that it was a bit of an in-joke among musicians related to a true story;

Apparently a well known female singer of light music was interupted once or twice by a drunk in the audience who kept yelling "I wanna hear Temptation" She tried to ignore him but eventually her patience snapped and she said "young man I don't sing that kind of song" to which the drunk replied "OK then show us your tits".

I can't vouch for it's authenticity

Hoot

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:08 AM

Authentic or not - I like it!

There's a similar story about a not-very-good music hall artiste who was receiving a rather rowdy reception from a rough audience at one of her performances. She stopped the orchestra at one point and asked the audience to behave - at which someone called out, "Come on - give the old cow a chance - she's doing the best she can!"

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 May 15 - 03:24 PM

Haven't read the whole thread, but am I the only one who feels "Jack of All Trades" from The Wrecking Ball was maybe a bit similar?
Better lyrics from "The Boss" than any of them, however.
John Kerr (The Singing Doctor).

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 27 May 15 - 10:16 PM

Got it!
Here's Jo Stafford with The Nightingale.
I remember this - no wonder I thought the Behan/Dylan tune was familiar, tho' at the time I couldn't quite place it.
And I used to love Shrimp Boats, back then. Maybe NZ radio was a bit behind the times in the 50s?
Robyn

Subject: RE: D.Behan, Dylan, Ives, and JO STAFFORD!?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 28 May 15 - 09:36 AM

I love Jo Stafford, my favourite of hers is "You Belong To Me". Just a grand singer. I was not aware of the folk album but have now listened to a lot of it on you tube,,,just lovely. Is it available as a cd ?
    Also, did Rusty Draper have a minor hit with the Libba Cotton song "Freight Train " ?