Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd

Subject: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: Jamie Hopkings
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 11:12 PM

Looking for the trad. chords to "Follow the Drinking Gourd". Any help would be much appreciated.

Subject: RE: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 06:36 AM

Jamie,

The lyrics are in the DT database (see the upper right hand corner of your screen, type in {Drinking Gourd]

Here is how I play it:

  FOLLOW THE DRINKING GOURD
  
   Am
                                                 When the sun goes back and the first quail calls
  Dm---------Am
                           Follow the drinking gourd
   -----------------G--------------F------------Em
  The old man is a-waitin' for to carry you to freedom
  Am---------Em-------Am
   Follow the drinking gourd.

     

Dm----------Am
  Follow the drinking gourd, 
  Dm----------Am
  Follow the drinking gourd
  ---------------------G----------F------------Em
   For the old man is a-waitin' to carry you to freedom
  Am---------Em-------Am
   Follow the drinking gourd 

    

(This verse is a tad different from the others).
  Am
  The river bed makes a mighty fine road,
   Dm------------Em-----------Am
  Dead trees to show you the way
  --------------------G---------F---------Em 
  And it's left foot, peg foot, traveling on
  Am---------Em-------Am
   Follow the drinking gourd
 

Enjoy the song!

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: JFF,III
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 09:31 PM

If you have access to a Borders Bookstore or Barnes & Noble or a good stringed instrument store, you should be able to find a copy of RISE UP SINGING which is an excellent publication put out by an organization called Sing Out! The book has lyrics and suggested, simplified chords to about 1200 songs including "Follow the Drinking Gourd." There is no sheet music included so you have to already know the tunes but they do have excellent training tapes which are expensive at $180 for the entire set of six groups of tapes but well worth it. Hope you are able to get a copy if you don't already have it. Best regards, John

Subject: RE: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: SailormomRita (inactive)
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 11:52 PM

Well...I highly recommend that same book...RISE UP SINGING. It is especially relavent to the songs most popular in the 60's & 70's.

Subject: RE: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: harpgirl
Date: 11 Apr 04 - 07:40 PM

This song is in the Dorian Mode. D minor, G major... Examples, "What Shall We do with a Drunken Sailor", "Follow the Drinking Gourd", "Wondrous Love," (Sam Hinton, SINGOUT, Vol 16, No2).

Subject: RE: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: Cattail
Date: 12 Apr 04 - 07:56 PM

Hi Jamie

The Penguin Book of American Folk Songs gives the chords as:-


1.

         Em
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,

Am
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd,

    G          D          Em          B7
The old man is a-wait-in' to carry you to free-dom,

Em          B7       Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd.


CHORUS

A            Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd,

A
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd,

    Em          D          Em          B7
The old man is a-wait-in' to carry you to free-dom,

Em          B7       Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd


*************************************************

The Weavers song book gives them as:-


1.

         Em
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,


Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd,

    G          D          Em          Bm
The old man is a-wait-in' to carry you to free-dom,

Em          Bm       Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd.



CHORUS

Em   A       Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd,


    A       Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd,

         G            D             Em             Bm
For the old man is a-wait-in' for to car-ry you to free-dom,


Em          Bm       Em
Fol-low the drin-kin' gourd



There ain't a lot of difference in it, missing out the Am on the
second line and substituting Bm for B7, thats it!

You pays your money and you takes your choice as they say.


Hope this comes out as I typed it in, and that it helps.


Cheers for now

Cattail !

Subject: RE: Drinking Gourd Chords
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Apr 04 - 10:19 PM

The original sheet music, copied correctly by Lomax and Lomax, 1938, in American Ballads and Folk Songs, pp. 227-228,is found in the first report of this controversial song, "Follow De Drinkin' Gou'd," 1928, Publ. Texas Folk-Lore Soc., No. VII, ed. J. Frank Dobie, pp. 81-83, "Foller De Drinkin' Gou'd," four verses and chorus.
Whether this is an old song or one devised by someone with access to information from Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas, where it was collected, is not known.

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: GUEST,The Og
Date: 15 Apr 20 - 01:15 PM

Anybody recall the ending chord sequence used by The New Christie Minstrels? I think they called it "Muddy Road to Freedom."

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: voyager
Date: 15 Apr 20 - 06:21 PM

this song takes me back to childhood.

follow the drinking gourd

voyager
(I would have been a 'nomad' but the handle was already spoken for)

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: Mysha
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 03:33 PM

In my recollection, "Follow the drinking gourd" isn't actually traditional. Rather, it was an addition by Lee Hays. Does anyone have anything solid on that?

BFN
Mysha

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: cnd
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:05 PM

Mysha: The American folksong Follow the Drinking Gourd was first published in 1928. The Drinking Gourd song was supposedly used by an Underground Railroad operative to encode escape instructions and a map. These directions then enabled fleeing slaves to make their way north from Mobile, Alabama to the Ohio River and freedom.

http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/

Apparently, recent studies have called the song's relation to slavery.

Lee Hays was not the original writer though. I can't find who made or printed the sheet music to the 1928 version, but the 1947 version is the version we currently know it by.

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 16 Apr 20 - 04:16 PM

Also, click the red folder (top right) when you open cnd's link, which is really informative.

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: Mysha
Date: 18 Apr 20 - 12:16 PM

Hi cnd,

When I wrote that in my recollection, "Follow the drinking gourd" was an addition by Lee Hays, the reason for the quotes was that the text referred to those words, rather than to the song. (Otherwise, the song would have been an addition to itself.)

From your link, I find my recollection was faulty, though, as it was "for the old man is awaitin' for to carry you to freedom" that was added by Hays. Then again, Hays appears to also have modified the song in different ways. It any part of the song can probably only be called "traditional" in the sense that such a song has existed in something like the earlier half of the 20th century.

BFN
Mysha

Subject: RE: Chords Req: Follow the Drinking Gourd
From: cnd
Date: 18 Apr 20 - 03:03 PM

Thanks for catching that, Starship, missed that. Must've been in a bit too much of a rush!