Australian/American songs: similarities

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Jun 02 - 04:36 PM

Yet another great thread that I had missed other times around. Lately it is too damn easy to miss the golden needles in the huge haystack that Mudcat has become---even when I'm looking for those.

Thanks for keeping this alive long enough for even me to notice it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Percustard
Date: 23 Jun 02 - 07:32 PM

Hi all,

This is a good thread. If a little off track toward the end from the original title of the thread.

There are a few other threads on Craigielea and Waltzing Matilda in Mudcat.

I agree with Bob. Indeed, (shameless plug alert) my band Tursacan does a rendition of Craigielea which segues into Waltzing Matilda (in 5.4 - there is a 5.4 bar in Macpherson's "original").

It is interesting how song origins get "muffled" and "muddled" over the centuries. It is sometimes very hard work getting to the heart of the matter and putting together an arguable case based on "facts" and rational induction.

Its like genealogy in song!

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 02:15 AM

Hope you're still looking this site up,Bob. There is a Eumarella Beach in Victoria, at the mouth of the Eumarella River near Yambuk on the Great Ocean Road, and a Numarella in NSW, just outside of Cooma. The Penguin Collection of Australian Folk Songs compiled by John Manifold and first published in 1964 has the opening line of the song as "There's a long green gulley by the Numarella shore, where I've lounged through many is the day". A friend purchased a property by the river in Numeralla, NSW, and his district map of the area showed an area called "The Long Green Gully", so that seems to to be the district that the song was written about.

Nina Berry

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Joybell
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 07:19 PM

Yes indeed Nina -- Yambuk is just south-west of us and people out here sang this song as "The Eumeralla Shore". They also sang "Darlin' Nelly Grey" as singers did all over Victoria.
The influence of the American song-sheet market, during the 19th century, on Australia has been very much under-rated.

Just to tie up another loose end -- the "Billy Barlow" songs can be studied on Warren Fahey's website. Sorry, blue clickies don't work for me even after intensive help.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jan 11 - 11:04 PM

Billy Barlow

===================

joy -

URL = http://warrenfahey.com/barlow/

IMPORTANT - don't omit the front bit, ie. http://   

2. past full URL in link URL line
3. type in text
4. Create link
5. DON'T cut & paste as it tells you

instead COPY & paste & voila - a workable blue clicky appears
-----------

If you omit the http:// the blickifier adds mudcat's URL in its place cos it thinks you are referring to a page in www.mudcat.org so you get something like
http://www.mudcat.org.warrenfahey.com/barlow/

sandra

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 01:47 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5w75f_Lz_Ahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5w75f_Lz_A it reminds me of an American tune cant think what?

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Jan 11 - 05:34 PM

G'day (Guest) Nina Berry,

There are a few other rivers about the eastern end of Australia with similar names. I suspect that Eumarella / Numarella and such are each local Australian Aboriginal names ... probably meaning something quite like ~ "the river"!

By the goldrush days (post-1850) literacy was pretty near universal ... overseas mail and publications arrived regularly ... ordinary people were beginning to earn more than a mere living wage ... and American sheet music was prolific (and often 'pirated' from British originals, as the USA has a long history as the great copyright pirates of the Western world!

Genuinely American composers (e.g. Henry Clay Work / Stephen Foster / &c., &c.) were big influences on the popular taste ( ... and tune ...) and some remained popular here far beyond their "5-minutes fame" back home in the USA, eg H. C. Work's Ring the Bell, Watchman, which celebrated the end of the (American) Civil War ... and was subsequently forgotten - at home when it ceased to be news.

However, the song remained published in Australian compilations for many decades after ... became thought of as a "hymn" - then was found to fit nicely to the rhythm of the newly popular "Barn Dance" (a version of the older Military Schottische ... influenced by an American music sheet ~ Dancing in a Barn ... and, as Ring the Bell, (Watchman) remained the staple tune for a social Barn Dance for the next century!

We should never fall into the trap of confining our ideas to (hoped for) narrow sources!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 24 Jan 11 - 09:53 PM

G'day again,

Oh yes ... and I forgot to carry on that Ring the Bell Watchman then acquired words about the older style blade-shearing (before machine shears) of Australian wool sheep - as Click Go the Shears ...

... and then, in 1966 when Australia changed to decimal currency, we found ourselves being serenaded by the Government's 'jingle' In Come the Dollars, In come the cents ... to the same tune and rhyme structure!

Regard(les)s,

Bob

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 04:54 AM

a bit of linguistic burrowing has unearthed this..
The name Eumarella is a corruption of Numarella, an Aboriginal word for .. valley of plenty.

freda

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 27 Jan 11 - 08:32 PM

G'day Freda,

That's an interesting 'translation' ... but we have to ponder just how much of that came from the local language speaker ... and how much might have been read in by the Gubba writing it down. It might well be that the cross-language exchange involved the name (which is obviously going to be some 'description' of the area being asked about ... and "a valley with a good river" might well mean, in practical and pragmatic terms, exactly the same as a "valley of plenty".

It might also depend on whether the scribe is an ethnographer ... or a real estate developer!

Regard(les),

Bob

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Joybell
Date: 29 Jan 11 - 06:01 PM

Thanks, Sandra.
A key point about printed sources during the 19th century in relation to Australia is that -- the American fast clippers could get the sheet music here faster than the British ships could.
However even with this in mind, my studies of popular songs(early 1800s to 1870ish)show a much larger proportion of sheet-music written by Americans like Henry Clay Work, Stephen Foster, William Shakespeare Hays etc. in Australia than songs by English composers. Not that I actually count them but I've always had the inclination to seek out sources and piece together old puzzles.
Cheers, Joy from near one of the Valleys-of-Plenty.

Subject: RE: Australian/American songs: similarities
From: Midchuck
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 07:59 PM

During the 1800's Australia and Americian had a lot of cross migration, besides sailors and whalers jumping ship.

Before the Califorian Gold Rushes there were a lot of Australian Convicts that had escaped or migrated to the West coast of Americian, then During the Califorian Gold rush many Free Settlers from Australia joined in the rush.

When Australia Gold rush started many from the Califorian gold fields followed the gold and came to Australian Gold fields, then when the gold rush in Australia settled down many moved back to Americia for the Alaskian and Yukon gold rushes and many returned for the Kalgoorlie and Palmer gold rushes

Google "Thomas Francis Meagher".

Irish Nationalist, convicted of sedition, transported for life. Escaped, made it to America, ended up a Brigadier General in the Union Army in the Civil War, then acting Governor of Montana Territory. All before drowning in the Missouri at age 43...

Peter