Origins: The Carter

03 Sep 05 - 02:02 PM (#1555493)
Subject: RE: Origins: The Carter
From: Desert Dancer

Darn. How many times have I written that note to myself: use Preview if you use HTML, Becky!

It's in the DT: The Carter, with what look to me like some typos (curties?? I assume it should be curries, for curry combs). Anyone have more information on this song? I know it from Dave Webber & Anni Fentiman's rendition, which misses the third verse, for some reason, and has other minor variations.

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03 Sep 05 - 02:39 PM (#1555515)
Subject: RE: Origins: The Carter
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Always interested in odd or old words, so went searching the OED (complete one) and slang dictionaries. Nary a Curtie except as a surname.
Could well be a typo for curry.
Can't find any history on this song. I wonder if it isn't inspired by the old song, "Jim the Carter Lad" (also in the DT).

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03 Sep 05 - 03:11 PM (#1555536)
Subject: RE: Origins: The Carter
From: Tradsinger

There are several versions of this. The Roud database lists 6. The one I know starts "When I was a young man I followed a team" which is the one in DT. It was collected by Sharp in Cambridgeshire in 1911 from William Porter. Lovely song. I passed it on to Tim Laycock, who recorded it on his CD "Fine Colours". The "Fine Colours" is what I sing and is the folk process working on the phrase "bright colours". I don't think think it's a "version" of Jim the Carter's lad, but a similar song in the same vein, like "Country Carrier".

Try this chord sequence: G D G D Em Bm Em/D Em G D G D Em Bm Em/D Em

Gwilym

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03 Sep 05 - 03:54 PM (#1555558)
Subject: RE: Origins: The Carter
From: Malcolm Douglas

The DT set (disregarding the rather strange typos) is the text published in A Selection of Collected Folk-Songs (Novello, 1912), as "collected and arranged by R Vaughan Williams". The text was from a Mr Stacey of Hollycombe, Sussex: a cowman, aged about 80 in 1904. It appears that RVW polished it up a bit, and may have given it a tune from another source. Roy Palmer (Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams, no. 98) prints tune (quite different from that in SCFS, which is a puzzle) and text as originally noted by RVW.

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03 Sep 05 - 04:59 PM (#1555591)
Subject: RE: Origins: The Carter
From: Desert Dancer

Thanks, and thanks. So some of the differences (other than typos) would be the different source singers.

I'd forgotten I had another rendition in the cd collection. Maybe that's why the earworm infection set in so fast after listening to the Dave & Anni cd lately -- I'd heard the song elsewhere, too. (Thanks for inspiring Tim Laycock, Gwilym!)

~ Becky in Tucson

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