Links

Sunday, April 05, 2009

The collection of Ellis Hall

I received the 12 songs that Marc Crabtree told me he had obtained from the WVU collection at the Wise Library at the WV Collection.

There are 12 tracks, none of them have been named as we will need to start working on finding the names of these songs.

The 12 songs:

Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
My Little Home in West Virginia is Track 7
I believe Sllepy Eyed Joe is Track 8
Foggy Valley is Track 9
Stoney Fork is Track 10
Track 11
Track 12


These are the 12 songs and that includes the four songs he released on the RCA Victor Label. If anyone would happen to know the names of the unnamed songs, I would greatly appreciate knowing.

9 comments:

fiddlinshim said...

Track 2 is a widely played schottische, and I'm looking for names for it for you.

Your links aren't quite right; tracks 4 and 5 seem to be the same recording. Perhaps one is missing here.

Jeremy said...

Track 2 is Rustic Dance written by C.R. Howell as a piano solo piece in 1935.

fiddlinshim said...

I don't doubt that Howell claimed to have written it and copyrighted it. On the other hand, copyrighting older traditional music has been going on for a very long time. My suspicions are raised by the fact that this is played by so many fiddlers in so many parts of the country. On the other hand, "Redwing" is also played by about everyone, and nobody doubts that Kerry Mills wrote it around 1900.

Banjo Brad said...

It also sounds like track 9 is the same tune as the track 4/5 tune. Not the same recording, but the same tune.

Track 3 also seems to me to be the same tune as track 10 (Stoney Fork). Again, same tune, not the same recording.

Anonymous said...

Track 5 is really there but the link needs to be corrected. It reads:
http://george-hall.net/Ellishall/UnnamedSongs/Track04.mp3

If you change the "4" to a "5", you can get the file by pasting in the corrected link.

Carl

Anonymous said...

Track 11 is called, in Samuel Bayard's books of Pennsylvania tunes, "Oil City Quickstep." However, there were other names for it, including, "Baker's March," "Beggar's March," etc. Track 3 sounds like "Richmond Polka," which also has other names; the last one is a schottische.
Paul Gifford

Unknown said...

Track 8 sounds very much like John Ashby's "Sleepy Eyed Joe."

fiddlinshim said...

Gail, where do you think tht John Ashby learned the tune?

fiddlinshim said...

Back to track 2, if you don't mind.
A version of this tune was recorded by folklorists/collectors Alan and Bess Lomax in Hazard, KY, in 1937. This isn't proof positive of what I said earlier, but I find it to be strong evidence. The recording was of fiddler Bev Baker.

Joel Shimberg