Beware, Oh Take Care (Blind Alfred Reed)

Beware, Oh Take Care

Traditional Tune and Words by Longfellow from Hyperion, 1847.

ARTIST: From Blind Alfred Reed, "Beware" (Victor 23550, 1931; on TimesAint02)

Listen: Blind Alfred Reed "Beware"

CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes

DATE: Words- 1847, Longfellow; Music from around 1880;

RECORDING INFO: Blind Alfred Reed, "Beware" (Victor 23550, 1931; on TimesAint02) New Lost City Ramblers, "Beware, Oh Take Care" (on NLCR10). Falderal String Band. Step Right Up... Free Show Tonight!, Hen House, Cas (1996), cut#B.02 (Beware); New Lost City Ramblers. Sing Songs of the New Lost City Ramblers, Aravel AB-1005, LP, cut# 11; Petric, Faith. As We Were, Center 37, LP (1986), cut#A.01 Reed, Blind Alfred. How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live, Rounder 1001, LP (1972), cut# 8 (Beware)

OTHER NAMES: Take Care; Beware; Boys Won’t Do To Trust; Bold and Free

SOURCES: Randolph 381, "Beware, Oh Beware"; New Lost City Ramblers. Old-Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1964/1976), p 70; Cohen/Seeger/Wood, pp. 70-71, "Beware, Oh Take Care"; Silber-FSWB, p. 167, "Beware, Oh, Take Care;" Digital Tradition;

NOTES: The lyrics are from a song, entitled “Take Care” by Longfellow’s Hyperion, 1847. The song has been in circulation since the mid- 1800’s with versions appearing as early as 1880’s. The song has entered the string band traditions and can be considered a fiddle tune.

Credited in the Digital Tradition to Blind Alfred Blake (which Paul Stamler points out should be "Blind Alfred Reed"), but -- since the piece has been in circulation since at least the 1880s -- it would appear that Reed, at most, retouched it into the "popular" form. Laura Ingalls Wilder quotes a scrap of the song in By the Shores of Silver Lake (chapter 6).