House of the Rising Sun - factual?

Subject: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 09:05 PM

We've all heard the song a million times. First time I heard it, I think, was on a Joan Baez recording. Did such a place actually exist in New Orleans at one time?

- LH

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From:
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 09:13 PM

Try here

House of the Rising Sun

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 09:22 PM

Ah well, there ya go. Everything one could possibly want to know about it and more, all covered by the Mudcat way back in '99. This is why music threads are so frequently of short duration on this forum.

This is why people start threads about chest hair, Alfred E. Neumann's belly button brush, onanism among orangutans, and other odd subjects like that. There's noting else left to talk about here.

Not that I'm not grateful for the link...interesting stuff.

- LH

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: 53
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 10:22 PM

Alan Price wrote the song for the Animals.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: michaelr
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 11:48 PM

53 - you're seriously misinformed (check the link above). Glad you're back, though - don't let the flamers bring you down.
I think it was the Persuasions or the Blind Boys of Alabama who recently recorded "Amazing Grace" to the tune of HOTRS...great stuff!

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Gary T
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 10:30 AM

Perhaps Alan Price arranged the song for the Animals.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Gypsy
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 11:26 AM

'ats more like it. Think lomax collected it in the early 1900, and was old at that time.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 12:10 PM

No Whack for onanist orangutan... 12 sites! Go figure... (thread creep into the other thread off)

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 12:43 PM

Forgive me for slipping in the two'pennorth, or two cents for American friends. Before he died (because it would have been difficult afterwards) Chas Chandler of the Animals said that Alan Price hated the song, and would walk out of the room when they were rehearsing it. All the other Animals claimed to be astonished to see his name on it as arranger: Hilton Valentine, the guitarist, gets apoplectic at the idea that Price taught him how to play it. Eric Burdon said a few years ago that he has to play gigs while the person who got the arranging credit sits back and lets the money roll in. Meanwhile, on an interview a few years back, the interviewer asked Alan Price: 'I have to ask you about House of the Rising Sun', at which Alan Price got quite aggressive, and said 'no, you don't have to ask me about that'! But, on our new CD, we've just used the tune... for the hymn There is a Green Hill Far Away. Fits a treat!!! - Ian B

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 12:48 PM

The thing about the Animals is...they were the first people to take that particular old folksong and give it a "rock" treatment, thus popularizing it on a massive basis. Their rendition was actually pretty darn good, in its own way. Dylan was impressed by it, as he was moving in the same general direction at the time, and giving fits to people like Alan Lomax, Ewan McColl, and Pete Seeger.

- LH

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: GUEST,alinact
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 01:10 PM

As I understand it, Burdon heard Dylan's version and basically said "we can do it better than that". Of course, being a band, their version was completely different and, being the early sixties, it wasn't surprising it became the hit it did.

I still like Dylan's version.

Allan

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 02:10 PM

The oldest recorded versions of this song, from the 1930s, "Rounder's Luck," and "Rising Sun Blues," are posted in the thread indicated by the click in George Seto's posting. John and Alan Lomax published it in 1941 from material collected in 1937. Data in the thread establish pretty clearly that nothing is known about earlier versions.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 02:47 PM

And of course the Animals broke the mould of the three-minute pop single by doing so. The old Radio Luxembourg, one of the first independent stations in Europe, couldn't handle it and used to fade out after two minutes, which rather screwed up the plot!

- Ian B

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 04:48 PM

Little Hawk, I didn't and don't put links up to stop the flow of conversation. I do it so you, if you hadn't seen it previously, could have a look at the older information. If you feel any of it is wrong, you are certainly welcome to refute that in this, or the original thread.

I just want everyone to start from the same point. IF we've already talked about it previously, why can't we bring up the older material? Doing it this way avoids any one making an error in the information they dredged up for the original thread. Sorry if you were offended, but I think it's important to see the older material. I won't stop doing it.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 05:07 PM

George, I agree. If people would check out what is already there, a lot of memory on the computer banks would be preserved, and a lot of repetition would be eliminated. Like you, I try to put any new comments in the original thread.
As to the statement "There is nothing more to talk about," there are some 50-100 songs that keep getting new threads for no reason other than to ask the same old questions but there are thousands that are not discussed.
Many performers seem to have no curiosity about what is out there and keep "covering" other singers work. I see songs in Levy and other sites that, in the hands of someone who recognizes their potential, could be future audience-pleasers. They may need revision to bring them up-to-date, but that seems to require more imagination than the average performer has.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 06:43 PM

I don't mind the links to the old threads - a lot of us missed them the first time round!

- Ian B

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: 53
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 06:47 PM

All I was going by is what I had read, and on the music that i had, it said, words and music by Alan Price.

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: michaelr
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 07:24 PM

Dicho - what's Levy?

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 10:26 PM

Michaelr,

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music is part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University. It contains over 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960. All pieces of the collection are indexed on this site and a search will retrieve a catalog description of the pieces. An image of the cover and each page of music will also be retrieved if the music was published before 1923 and is in the public domain.

Each of the available pages are in GIF format for easy downloading.

You can find them here:

http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/index.html

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 10:30 PM

BTW, there are other special collections like that one. The Max Hunter one is excellent. This fellow MAx Hunter collected a ton of songs in the Ozarks and those songs, in each and every variant he found, is available there.

http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/MaxHunter

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 10:44 PM

BTW, there are other special collections like that one. The Max Hunter one is excellent. This fellow MAx Hunter collected a ton of songs in the Ozarks and those songs, in each and every variant he found, is available there.

http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/MaxHunter
 
Duke U Collection of Collections
 
PD Music
 
LoC Special Collection Sheet Music
 

Enjoy

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: marty D
Date: 08 Feb 02 - 11:11 PM

Puhleeze! Any links to old music threads where the discussions were intelligent and based on some first hand contact with the songs are greatly appreciated by some of us. Thanks george and Dicho.

marty

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 03:48 AM

I've just been going through George's links - incredible! What guys these must have been...

Thanks.

- ian B

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 01:15 PM

No problem, George...I was just making a sort of joke with reference to some of the sillier threads I have started on this forum (there are some people here who seem to be offended by non-musical threads...). Your link was a useful one and I have no objection to it at all.

- LH

Subject: RE: House of the Rising Sun - factual?
From:
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 01:48 PM

Thanks Little Hawk.

I don't mind the Non-Musical ones, except that they take up valuable space. Max only has so much space.

Those threads are what brings about the community spirit. I don't comment in them often, or even very much, but they are valuable in that respect.

Thanks for the reply though.