source request

Subject: source request
From: GUEST,Scott Prouty
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 02:48 PM

Hi,

I'm looking for the earliest or best known recordings of the following songs. I am also trying to find out whether they are all traditional, or if there is copyright involved.

1. "The Old Rusty Wagon" (from Sam McGee?) 2. "Woah Mule" 3. "Walkin' Boss"

Many thanks! Scott

Subject: RE: source request
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 03:42 PM

Scott,
A good place to start is the Folk Music Index at folkindex.mse.jhu.edu
Russ

Subject: RE: source request
From: nutty
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 05:00 PM

Tried Google but only managed to find Number 3

WALKIN' BOSS

Subject: RE: source request
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:35 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: source request
From: Stewie
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:01 PM

The McGee song you are after may be 'When the Wagon Was New'. If so, Sam variously said that he 'got it from a vistor from Illinois in the 1930s' or that he (Sam) had written it in the 1920s. You will find information in this thread:

Click

Clarence 'Tom' Ashley recorded 'Walking Boss' in 1961 for Eugene Earle and Ralph Rinzler. [cf Smithsonian/Folkways SF CD 40029/30]. Ashley told Rinzler that he had learned this track lining song while 'busting' outside of pay shacks in West Virginia coalfields. Rinzler noted that 'Newman Ivy White and Odum and Johnson include identical texts for this African-American worksong. White's text was collected in Alabama in 1906. 'Walking Boss' appears in Herbert Halpert's handwritten field notes from his 1939 collecting trip'. See also this thread:

Click

'Whoa Mule Whoa' was recorded prolifically by old-time artists in the 1920s - Uncle Dave, Skillet Lickers etc. Evidently, it was reported as early as 1911 in the 'Journal of American Folklore'. There is a thread in the forum:

Click

The lyrics to Gun Cannon's 'Whoa Mule, Get Up in the Alley' may be found in this thread:

Click

Hope the above is of some help,

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: source request
From: Stewie
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:06 PM

In the above posting, that should be Gus Cannon, not 'Gun Cannon' - one piece of artillery should be enough!

--Stewie.