Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'

Subject: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: Tara
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 04:32 PM

Does anyone have any background information on the Cajun folk song "Tender Love"? The music I have for it was arranged by Norman Luboff. I am planning to sing it for a recital and was trying to find more info for program notes. I have searched the internet without any luck. The lyrics, if I remember correctly, are as follows:

Love, love, tender love. Where are you tonight? Moon and stars shine up above, But without you, there is no light.

Love, love, tender love, Hear my lonely cry. Moon and stars die up above, And without you, then so will I.

Thanks for anything anyone knows about this song. Tara

Subject: RE: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 10:05 AM

"Tender Love" is in Norman Luboff & Win Stracke's Songs of Man (Prentice-Hall, 1969, p. 80), which says simply: "In the Cajun country, this is sometimes sung as a lullaby." There must be a French version, because in the book the credit is written as "Eng. lyric and Arr. by N.L."

~Masato

Subject: RE: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 10:20 AM

Norman Luboff Choir's sound clip is HERE.

Subject: RE: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: Tara
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 04:57 PM

Thanks, Masato. It would be interesting to see if the French words are floating around out there somewhere...

Thanks also for the sound clip. It helped to know it wasn't as slow as it is marked in the music. Luboff has it marked at quarter note equals 54.

Tara

Subject: RE: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 03:20 AM

I've found this version in Dorothy Berliner Commins, Lullabies of the World (Random House, 1967, p. 24; with music), with a different title & totally different lyrics. Tempo is Andante. Melody is substantially the same, but the last line is repeated. Notes don't say anything about the origins except that it is a "Louisiana Creole" lullaby, but are copied here for reference.

GAY CREOLE GAL

"Louisiana, at one time under Spanish, French, and British rule, has long been known as a cosmopolitan culture, combining elements of all these together with Indian and Negro influences. The word Creole originated in the 16th century to denote people of Spanish parentage in the West Indies, but gradually it became widely applied to the language, forms of Spanish and French spoken by the inhabitants of the New World. For example, the term Freanch Creole is applied to the language of Haiti and English Creole describes the Jamaican dialect. In Louisiana Creole refers to the language of the descendants of original French settlers and is distinguished from Cajun which is applied to the patois of refugees from French Canada (Acadia) whose long journey here was celebrated in Longfellow's "Evangeline." Creole folklore is full of fable and mystery, of talking animals, of spells and enchantments, and that is reflected in 'Gay Creole Gal' by the image of talking gourds and alligators and by the menace of the wildcat who stalks in the night."

Gay Creole gal, sweep up that road.
I'll tell him "Yes!" I'll tell him
That gourd can speak,
That gourd can speak.

Gay Creole gal, sweep up that road.
I'll tell him "Yes!" I'll tell him
That alligator can sing,
That alligator can sing.

Gay Creole gal, sweep up that road.
I'll tell him "Yes!" I'll tell him
That wildcat can strangle,
That wildcat can strangle.

GUÉGUÉ SOLIN GAIE

Guégué Solin gaie, balayez chimin-lè,
M'a di' li, "Oui!" M'a di' li,
Calabasse, li connain parler,
Calebasse, li connain parler.

Guégué Solin gaie, balayez chimin-lè,
M'a di' li, "Oui!" M'a di' li,
Cocodri, li connain chanter!
Cocodri, li connain chanter.

Guégué Solin gaie, balayez chimin-lè,
M'a di' li, "Oui!" M'a di' li,
Pichou, li connain 'trangler,
Pichou, li connain 'trangler.

According to Gary Lynn Ferguson's Song Finder (Greenwood), "Gue-Gue Solingaie" (French) is also in Mina Monroe, Bayou Ballads: 12 Folk Songs from Louisiana (G. Schirmer, c1921), which I haven't seen.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: GAY CREOLE GAL / GUÉGUÉ SOLIN GAIE
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 03:22 AM

Subject: Lyr Add: GUE GUE
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 07:15 AM

The Kingston Trio recorded this as "Gue Gue" on From the "Hungry i" [with sound clip].

GUE GUE
by Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds

Gue Gue solingaie, balliez chimin la.
Gue Gue solingaie, balliez chimin la.
M'a dis li, oui, m'a dis li.
Calbass' li connain parler.
Calbass' li connain parler.

Sleep, sleep, don't you weep, dry your tears awhile.
Dream, dream, then you'll hear, the singing crocodile.

CHORUS:
Oh, dreaming, we'll go dreaming.
Hush, now, baby, don't you cry.

Sail, sail, pretty babe, while the moon is low
Through bright bayou night the dreamboats drifting slow.

CHORUS:
Oh, dreaming, we'll go dreaming.
Hush, now, baby, don't you cry.

Lyrics with chords are HERE, with this note: Adelaide Van Wey recorded a 10" LP for Folkways in 1950 called "All Day Singin'--Louisiana and Smokey Mountain Ballads." One of the selections was titled "Gue, Gue, Solingaie (Sleep the Dreampath Clear)."

"Gue Gue" is also on Authentic Cajun Lullabies, which is on the list of CD Universe, with sound clip. Just put in "gue gue"; and click on "song".

Subject: RE: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 09:30 AM

Copied from HERE:

Posted to the Musicians Rendezvous board by Pete Curry on 2/14/2002, 10:29 pm:

In a posting I made here a year or so ago I said that according to the book "Folksingers and Folksongs in America" by Ray M. Lawless (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, N.Y., 1965), the otherwise obscure Adalaide Van Wey had recorded the KT song "Gue, Gue" on a 1950 Folkways 10" LP titled "All Day Singing: Louisiana and Smoky Mountain Ballads." What intrigued me was the complete title of this song as reported by Lawless: "Gue, Gue, Solingaie (Sweep the Dreampath Clear)."

Since was the only pre- (or post-?) KT version of that song that I am aware of, I tracked down a copy of the Van Wey LP to see what it might reveal. As it turns out, the melody of Van Wey's version differs somewhat from the KT version. She does not repeat the first line as per the KT version (lyrically or melodically). There is no refrain. And her version is entirely in Creole French. The Creole lyrics are not included in the printed notes that accompany the LP, but Van Wey does provide this English verse rendering:

"Dreamland opens here,
so sweep the dreampath clear.

Listen, well,
what the tortoise has to tell.

Listen, little child,
to the song of the crocodile.

Listen, baby, close your eyes,
in the canebrake the wildcat cries."

Also in the notes she tells us that the song was collected by Mina Monroe. In the bibliography for the notes we learn that Ms. Monroe was the author of a book titled "Bayou Ballads" which presumably was Van Wey's source.

A copy of that book was listed at Advanced Book Exchange (www.abe.com). And according to the bookseller's description, it was published in 1921 and contained "12 songs with melody line and piano music, verses and English translations." I ordered the book, it arrived today, and here is the complete original Creole (or "patois") version of "Gue Gue," with an English verse translation supplied by Ms. Monroe:

Gue-gue Solingaie,
Dreamland opens here
balliez chimin-la
Sweep the dreampath clear
M'a dis li,
Listen, chile
oui, m'as dis li
now listen well
Calbasse, il connain parler
What the tortoise may have to tell
Calbasse, il connain parler
What the tortoise may have to tell

Gue-gue Solingaie
Dreamland opens here
Balliez chimin-la
Sweep the dreampath clear
M'a dis li
Listen, chile
oui, m'a dis li
now listen well
Cocodril, li connain chanter
To the song of the crocodile
Cocodril, li connain chanter
To the song of the crocodile

Gue-gue Solingaie
Dreamland opens here
Balliez chimin-la
Sweep the dreampath clear
M'a dis li
Listen, chile
oui, m'a dis li
now close your eyes
Pichou, li connain trangier
In the canebreak, the wildcat cries
Pichou, li connain trangier
In the canebreak, the wildcat cries

Given this information, the KT's source could have been either the Van Wey LP or the Monroe collection. (In an interview conducted by Pete Pardee in 1979, Dave Guard says that his friend and Stanford musicologist Erich Schwandt was paid a small fee to make tape recordings of songs from songbooks, so the non-music reading Trio could learn them.) What is interesting to me is the changes the KT made to the song (in particular, the addition of the refrain "Oh, dreaming, we'll go dreaming...") which, to my ear, make it much more appealing.

"GUE GUE"--KT Version [omitted]

~Masato

Subject: RE: Cajun folk song 'Tender Love'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 11:17 AM

Dr. James F. Roach recorded "Guè Guè Solingaie" in 1925 (Okeh 8889-a). This info is from HERE.