C-2  Don't Reckon It'll Happen Again;  Classic string band song. It is one of my favorite Beautiful Nonsense songs.   (04/22/2007 -- 2:29)

C-3  Bill Mason; A string band song and a different railroad song...no hoboes.   (04/22/2007) -- 1:23)

C-4  Pal Of Mine; A favorite, pretty standard with nice imagery.  Another porch swing song.                (04/22/2007 -- 2:29)

C-5  Been All Around The World; String band song showing that it  isn't just a  man who had some experience.  I wish it was longer.   (04/22/2007 -- 2:39)

C-6  Billy Grimes; Love conquers all...but a little help won't hurt.  And remember -- "Mama knows best!"  (04/22/2007 -- 1:28)

C-7  All Around The Mountain; String band song of the '20s. It is fun to play because it is different.     (04/22/2007 -- 1:19)

C-8  Cannibal Maid; One of my favorite love songs...and it is a waltz...though I have never seen anyone dance to it.   (04/22/2007 -- 2:24)

C-9  Another Broken Heart;  Sad ballad.   (04/22/2007 -- 1:51)

C-10  Damned Yankee Lad;  I got this song from a Sam Hinton LP.  It is always a fun song to sing...particularly way down South.   When I spoke with Hinton later, he couldn't recall where it came from.   "Just old."   (04/24/2007 -- 2:56)

C-11  'Way Down Town;  A bunch of ol' time musicians did this at a folk festival in the '60s.  I was there and borrowed it from them. It was done in the '20s by a bunch of string bands.   (04/24/2007 -- 2:01)

C-12  Rambler Gambler;  Texas cowboy song that went north to ranch in Canada...and then came back the better for the trip.   (04/24/2007 -- 2:01)

C-13  Burglar Man;  Old standard and good fun.    (04/24/2007 -- 1:42)

C-14  Johnson's Cat;  Beautiful Nonsense...my favorite music.   (04/24/2007 -- 2:34)

C-15    Ragged But Right;  One of those songs that is too short.   (04/24/2007 -- 1:04)

  Anytime the family got in our '36 Ford and the trip lasted more than an hour, we would hear my Dad sing this and the next song...plus a bunch of Jimmie Rodgers' songs.  If the trip lasted two hours, we would hear them twice... etc.

C-17  Rough And Rowdy Ways;  This song appears in many forms  but is still too short.  A Jimmy Rodgers song.    (04/24/2007 -- 2:11)

C-18  Scoldin' Wife;  Beautiful Nonsense.    (04/24/2007 -- 1:17)

C-19  Message From Home;  Pretty lyrics with familiar tune.  E.V. "Poppa" Stoneman wrote the words.  An epic can be made from this short song.   (04/24/2007 -- 2:31)

C-20  Goodbye Miss Liza Jane;  1903 - String band song and another one of my favorites. It exists in many forms but was written by Tin Pan Alleyman Harry von Tilzer.  It is a primitive mountain string band tune with direct ties to the hustle and bustle of turn-of-the-century, New York City.   (04/24/2007 -- 1:47)

C-21  Cotton Mill Girls;  I heard this at a folk festival and was sung by Hedy West. It is a song of laboring lament from the early 1900s.   The mentioned "Gilmore" is Gilmore County in northern Georgia. Song was much politicized later.   (04/25/2007 -- 1:57)

C-22  Farmer's Wife;  This is one of the least ethnic versions of many similarly themed songs. It has gone through such evolutionary changes, it must be in public domain.    (04/25/2007 --   2:58)

C-23  Greenland Whale Fishery;  An ethnic song coming from the whaling industry and much modified over the years.  Lots of dates are given for the song; 1790s and the ship was The Lion; March 17, 1849, no ship name; or June 13, 1853. The event in the song happened many times.  My banjo has never had a resonator and I always play it with a wadded sock crammed  against the back of the head, and two wooden clothes pins clipped to the bridge.   (04/25/2007 -- 2:22)

C-24  O'Ground Hog;  There is some truth in this old song...but only some.   (04/25/2007 -- 1:07)

C-25  Railroad Boy;  This appears as "Butcher Boy" and "London Boy" in various forms.  The verse block is familiar with the white doves in burials and the like.  British Isles derivation.  This is played on my home-made, 4-string, tear drop lap dulcimer -- cherry with spruce top.   (04/28/2007 -- 2:45)

C-26  Rake And Rambling Boy;  Again, a common verse form of traditional tune.  "Black Jack Davey," "Betty and Dupre," and other such songs use this theme.   (04/28/2007 -- 1:27)

C-27  Take A Whiff On Me;  This is one of several about the early days of taking dope.  Traditional song and verse form.   W. Guthrie claimed it but it precedes him.   (04/28/2007 --   2:51)

C-28  Queensland Overlander;  I learned this while in Western Australia.  Later, I learned that Rolf "Bongo Board" Harris had recorded it. Harris is remembered for his "Tie Me Kangaroo Down."  He is a brilliant man.   (05/02/2007 --   2:10)

C-29  Eddystone Light;  The first lighthouse was at Eddystone Rocks, a reef off Plymouth, England, built in 1698. This song refers to the fourth, built by James Smeaton, 1758. That one stood 127 years. Cracks at the base caused another to be built and the Smeaton was dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe.  (06/02/2007 -- 1:18)

C-30  Bold Fisherman; Traditional.  Always lots of fun.  1970 Harmony tenor guitar has a different and enjoyable sound.    (06/10/2007 -- 1:43)

C-31  Click Go The Shears;  This is another I learned in Western Australia.  And yet another that Rolf "Bongo Board" Harris recorded.  I guess he recorded most Australian folkish songs.   (06/10/2007 -- 3:07)

C-32  Blow The Candle Out;  It has the traditional Irish tune of "The Winding Banks of Erne," but the lyrics are current to whatever war was going on at the time.  It is a recurring theme in England, Ireland, and Scotland.  (This song is THE song that exposed me to the differences in commercial and ethnic folk music...and set my musical path on the ethnic.)   (06/15/2007 -- 1:58)

C-33  A Tramp On The Street; 1939.  Grady & Hazel Cole (sort of).  The song had been published as "Only A Tramp" in 1877 by Dr. Addison D. Crabtree, and many of the lines are the same as Coles' version.   (06/16/2007 -- 3:20)

C-34  Philadelphia Lawyer; 1937.  Woody Guthrie.   It was originally "Reno Blues."   That is what it was when Rose Maddox heard it.  She and brothers were playing in a saloon across the street from the saloon where Guthrie was playing.  Both were playing for beer and sandwiches. Rose and her brothers recorded it in 1940 and it was a hit.   (06/16/2007 -- 2:38)

C-35  Omie Wise; 1808 - Traditional.  Omie Wise was an orphan being cared for by an honorable family, but she got involved with a Jonathan Lewis in Deep River, Randolph County, NC -- who was far from honorable. The song is a not-so- fanciful account of the event of spring of 1808.  Her long dress had been tied up over her head by a leather strap.  She had also been beaten.

The song ends without conclusion because it was written and started on its oral  path while Lewis was still in jail.

However, Lewis escaped from jail a month after the song ends, moved to Kentucky and started a family.  Six years later, he was located and returned for trial but with the passage of time, the prosecution's case was not a strong one and Lewis was released.    (06/16/2007 -- 3:29)

C-36  Buffalo Skinners; Traditional.  There are several versions of this song; even one with a Tin Pan Alley tune.  Though the words are a little different in each, of interest is the name of the boss of the buffalo skinners; Crego, or Krego.  That is a strange name to be common in a song that travel by word-of-mouth for so long. (The Jacksboro mentioned is no doubt in Texas, as this was an outfitting town the 1880s.  There is no Peace river in Texas but that could have been a then-current reference to a river defining the border of "civilization.")

This song is similar to "Texas Rangers" because they have a common  acapella style  These were first poems and then done in a sing-song speaking voice.   Many folk songs were this way because of the scarcity of musical instruments on the prairies.  (06/16/2007 -- 3:29)

C-37  Angel Band;  1864 - Rev. J. Hascall & William Bradbury.  This a classic, old-timey, church quartet, funeral song.    (06/19/2007 -- 3:52)

C-38 Do-Re-Me;  Woody Guthrie.  This song is/was "Grapes Of Wrath" in verse and tune.   (06/19/2007 -- 2:25)

C-39  Knoxville Girl; Like a lot of American ballads, the origin is in the British Isles.  This one, which occurs in several versions, is closely akin to "Wexford Girl."   Wexford, in the county of Cork, on the SE Irish coast, was not named as a ford over a River Wex, but rather for a mythical event.  Myths must take the place of history when a town dates from the early 900s.   I got this version  from the singing of the Wilburn Brothers, 1938.  (06/19/2007 -- 2:57)

C-40  Grand Coulee Dam; 1940.  Woody Guthrie wrote this the month he was  a federal government employee.    (06/19/2007 -- 2:12)

C-41   Texas Rangers:  ~1835.  This was initially a poem and like many poems was done in a sing-song voice.  There are many slight variations to the song.  When sung, an Irish lament from the 1500s was used.  There are similarities with "Buffalo Skinners."

The Texas Rangers were formed in Nov. 1835. Until 1840, the Rangers, when attacked, would circle into a defensive position, and accurately fire their single-shot rifles in rotating volleys.  During the time it took to load the rifle, an Indian could release six arrows.  The Rangers did not get the Colt six-shooter until 1840 and then the best defense was a rapid offense on horse back.   (06/22/2007 -- 3:40)

C-42   Ella Speed:  I wouldn't think Ella's last name was Speed, but she was murdered by a bartender in Dallas in 1901.  The song source is from a black community because it has the usual "women re-ragged in red" reference.

In another such song, "Brady and Duncan", is the verse "they went right home and they re-ragged in red, and come a slippin' an' a'slidin' and shufflin' down the street in their big Mother Hubbards and their stockin' feet."   (06/22/2007 -- 2:00)

C-43   Staggerlee:  It is never very productive to analyze a commercial folk song.  I wouldn't think "Stagger Lee" by any spelling would be a real person.  But like most commercial folk songs, they are fun to play.   (06/22/2007 -- 3:26)

C-44  Stack O'Lee:  This was the origin, in some form, of "Staggerlee." It appears that Stack O'Lee was a well-dressed pimp, named Lee Shelton, and a bully Billy Lyons snatched Shelton's fancy hat off his head.  Shelton didn't like it.  This all happened in a gambling/bar/whore house in St. Louis on Christmas Day, 1895.     (04622/2007 -- 3:01)

C-45 Betty & Dupre; The song has many versions but it started out rather simply with a short story.  As it gained in popularity, people added more verses.  It has gotten pretty long now but the story is the same regardless.

In story, it is kin to "Rake and Rambling Boy" and well as, even older songs like "Black Jack Davey."  In all of these, the love interest wants something and the man commits a crime to please her.  "Oh, she was sweet and gay.   She caused me to rob the broad highway."   (06/22/2007 -- 2:36)

C-46 Big Boss Man; Like many such songs, it exists in many variations.  This one came about strangely.  I had a friend who wanted to learn to play uke...he decided it would be a baritone uke.   And he wanted to finger pick it.  And one of his favorite songs was this old blues song.  To make it even more different, I added my harmonica playing to it.

So this is a finger-picked blues on a baritone uke with harmonica accompaniment...and it is long.      (07/29/2007 -- 5:49)