Tune Req: WV songs specifically

16 Oct 01 - 11:01 AM (#573369)
Subject: WV songs specifically
From: Walking Eagle

Hi,

I'm trying to create an informal song book of folk songs that mention West Virginia in the title or the lyrics. I have quite a few, but I'm hoping that you 'catters can help me out a little with some that I may not be aware of. I would like older songs, but I'm not picky.

Thanks, W.E.

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16 Oct 01 - 11:10 AM (#573374)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Bearheart

You don't say what you've got so far-- I'd suggest that you contact FOOTMAD (Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance) in Charleston WV, they should be able to help. They havea website. If this doesn't work, I know somw folks in the organization who probably could. PM me and I'll try to hook you up...

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16 Oct 01 - 11:12 AM (#573377)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Mrrzy

Misread the title, thought you were looking for VW songs! Isn't there one about the bug and another about the minibus? Otherwise, all I can think of is East Virginia, obviously not your desire. Will keep thinking. AllanC, any input?

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16 Oct 01 - 11:26 AM (#573388)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Allan C.

Perhaps these could be among the ones you seek. Note that this is Volume I of two. Not all of the songs are from or about WV, but you might readily recognize that some are, such as The Beckley Rag (Frank Hutchison) and Explosion in the Fairmount Mines (Blind Alfred Reed).

I presume you have already done a search by way of the DT/Forum Search.

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16 Oct 01 - 11:28 AM (#573392)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Gary T

In the DT we have Arkansas Boys, along with a note about an earlier version using Virginia and Carolina instead of Missouri and Arkansas. I've seen several variations of this with different states and some different verses. I'm told that the Civil War inspired a version using Virginia and West Virginia.

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16 Oct 01 - 01:32 PM (#573482)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: masato sakurai

A song where WV is sung in the lyrics is John Denver's "Country Roads," but probably this is not the one. Songs in John Harrington Cox, Folk-Songs of the South (1925; reprint Dover, 1967) were "Collected under the auspices of the West Virginia Folk-lore Society," but I think most of them are not specifically WV songs. On WV country music, see Ivan Tribe's Mountaineer Jumboree: Country Music in West Virginia (University Press of Kentucky, 1984). In the index, there are "West Virginia," "West Virginia Feud Song," "Hail, West Virginia," "When the Sun Sets in West Virginia," "West Virginia Hills," "West Virginia My Home" (I like this Hazel Dickens song), and so on.

~Masato

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16 Oct 01 - 02:00 PM (#573503)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: GUEST,jaze

"Green Rolling Hills" written by Utah Phillips. I have it by Emmylou Harris on her Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town lp. Needless to say, she does it beautifully.

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11 Mar 03 - 10:59 PM (#907904)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Walking Eagle

refresh

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12 Mar 03 - 12:48 AM (#907949)
Subject: Lyr Add: NANCY BROWN
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

In the Hills of West Virginia lived a girl named Nancy Brown,
And you never saw such beauty, in country or in town;
Well, one day the village deacon was a-lookin' for a thrill
So he took our little Nancy away up in them hills

cho 1: She came rollin' down the mountain
Rollin' down the mountain,
Rollin' down the mountain mighty soon
And that poor old village deacon
Didn't get what he was seekin'
And she's still as pure as West Virginia moon.

Well, along there came a trapper with his musket and his furs
He took her in the mountains, but she still kept what was hers,

cho 2: She came rollin' down the mountain
Rollin' down the mountain,
Rollin' down the mountain on the sly,
And despite that trapper's urgin'
She remained the local virgin
And she's still as pure as West Virginia sky

(spoken) And that's no lie!

Well the next one was a cowboy, with his guitar and his song
He took her in the mountains, but she still knew right from wrong

,

cho 3: She came rollin' down the mountain
Rollin' down the mountain,
Rollin' down the mountain mighty like a lamb,
And like the trapper and the deacon
He didn't get what he was seekin'
And she's still as pure as West Virginia ham.

(spoken) God damn!

Well along there came a slicker with his hundred-dollar bills
And she jumped into his Cadillac, they rode up in the hills,

cho 4: Well she stayed up in the mountains,
Stayed up in the mountains,
Stayed up in the mountains all that night;
She came down next morning, early
More a woman than a girlie
And her daddy kicked that hussy out of sight.
(spoken) Damn right!

Now she's livin' in the city, livin' in the city
Stayin' in the town and doin' well:
She's a-winin', she's a dinin'. On her fanny she's reclinin'
And those West Virginia hills can go to Hell.

Note: learned ca. 1946 on streets of Brooklyn. RG
@seduction @virtue @mountain
filename[ NNCYBRWN]
RG

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12 Mar 03 - 01:51 AM (#907985)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: mg

Is sending brownhaired Becky Richmond bound..is she originally from West Virginia?
mg

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26 Mar 07 - 12:28 PM (#2007622)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: GUEST,GUEST: peregrine

There Ain't No Ash Will Burn

(Not an old song, but quite a good one by a Nashville songwriter named Walt Aldridge. I've heard versions by Mollie O'Brien and by Laura Love and Jo Miller. Below is the way I heard it and learned it from the Laura Love Jo Miller CD, though I've seen slight variations in lyrics trasncribed by others. Another great West Virginia song is by Mollie's brother Tim O'Brien, called "A Mountaineer is Always Free," in which he does not specifically mention the state ... but that's the slogan on the official state seal. Mollie and Tim are from Wheeling, I believe.)

I have seen snow that fell in May
And I have seen rain on cloudless days
Somethings are always bound to change
There ain't no ash will burn

Love is a precious thing I'm told
It burns just like West Virginia coal
But when the fire dies down it's cold
There ain't no ash will burn

You say this life is not your lot
Well I can't be something that I'm not
We can't stoke a fire that we ain't got
There ain't no ash will burn

In every life there comes a time
When there are no more tears to cry
We must leave something here behind
There ain't no ash will burn

There is one lesson I have learned
There ain't no ash will burn

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26 Mar 07 - 04:26 PM (#2007785)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Susan of DT

18 hits for [West Virginia} in the (updated) DT:
   ADIEUBON Adieu to Bon County
   SHILOHIL Battle of Shiloh Hill
   BATKANAW Battle Song of the Great Kanawha
   COCAINB4 Cocaine Blues (4)
   CNTRYRD   Country Roads
   WHNCORT4 East Virginia Girls
   BARDOOR4 Get Up and Bar the Door (4)
   GRENROLL Green Rolling Hills
   PRINROB2 Harry Saunders
   HILLWVA   Hills of West Virginia
   JOHNHARD John Hardy
   JOHNHENR John Henry 2
   DIESTORM Lord, I don't Want to Die in the Storm
   MOLLMCG   The Molly Maguires
   NNCYBRWN Nancy Brown
   PICKROBN Pick Poor Robin Clean
   PRCHRBR   The Preacher and the Bear
   WVMINING West Virginia Mining Disaster
I think I have a book as well; I'll check that later

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26 Mar 07 - 04:28 PM (#2007787)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Barry Finn

For a moment I saw this backwards as a VW & though songs about VolksWagons? Strange.

Barry

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26 Mar 07 - 05:45 PM (#2007860)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: oldhippie

"Goodbye To West Virginia", Bobby Ross - on his Voice of America CD.

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26 Mar 07 - 06:51 PM (#2007913)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: Susan of DT

Yes, I was remembering the songbook correctly - Folksongs of Central West Virginia by Michael E. Bush. Four volumes of soft cover, spiral bound little books published in 1969. If Walking Eagle is still with us (or other interested people), PM me with your email and I'll send you scans of the tables of contents, if you are still interested. They seem to be versions of widely known songs that are not perculiar to WVa.

Also, the University of West Virginia has some recordings out, available from CAMSCO.

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30 Nov 10 - 06:57 PM (#3043912)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: WV songs specifically
From: GUEST

When my son was 16 he wrote a beauitful song about WV called "Mountians Roll On" you can here it at www.myspace.com/jedbayes. He is 20 now and is at Liberty Univ. in Lynchburg VA on a full scholorship. He playes the piano and has written several songs. He he studing Worship Music/songwriting.

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