Loveless Love- Version 7 (Riley Puckett)

Careless Love- Folk Version Recorded by Riley Puckett

Painting By Richard Matteson based on traditional woman's lyrics

Traditional, Old-Time, Song and Fiddle Tune. Southeast; Arkansas. The title appears in a list of fiddle tunes from the Ozark Mountains compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954.

ARTIST: From Riley Puckett; recorded in 1931
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: Earliest 1880

RECORDING INFO: Byrd Moore, "Careless Love" (Columbia 15496-D, c. 1930); Dock Boggs, "Careless Love" (on Boggs3, BoggsCD1); Riley Puckett, "Careless Love" (Columbia 15747-D, 1932) (Bluebird B-5532, 1934) (Montgomery Ward M-4507, 1934); Pete Seeger, "Careless Love" (on PeteSeeger18) Blues versions- Big Bill Broonzy, Carl Jackson, Brownie McGhee, Joe Turner; Baez, Joan; and Bill Wood. Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square, Veritas, LP (1960), cut#A.09; Douglas, Bob. Sequatchie Valley, Tennessee Folklore Soc. TFS-109, LP (198?), cut# 7; Flatt & Scruggs with Doc Watson. Strictly Instrumental, Columbia CS 9443, LP, cut# 10; Geremia, Paul. Great Hudson River Revival, Flying Fish FF-214, LP (1980), cut# 5; Highwaymen. Homecoming, United Artists UAL 3348, LP (196?), cut#A.06; Hill, Hank; and the Tennessee Folk Trio. Folk Song Hall of Fame, Palace M-716, LP (196?), cut# 10; Homer and the Barnstormers. Blue Grass Banjos - Flaming Banjos, Alshire 2-120-1/2, LP (197?), cut#1A.05; Jenkins, Snuffy; and Pappy Sherrill. Crazy Water Barn Dance, Rounder 0059, LP (1976), cut# 12; Johnson, Lonnie. Lonnie Johnson. The Complete Recordings, Smithsonian/Folkways SF-40067, Cas (1993), cut#A.11; Katzman, Nick; and Ruby Green. Mississippi River Bottom Blues, Kicking Mule KM 111, LP (197?), B.03; Martin, Asa; and the Cumberland Rangers. Dr. Ginger Blue, Rounder 0034, LP (1974), cut# 10 (Two Old Freight Trains Side By Side); McCurdy, Ed. Folk Singer, Dawn DLP 1127, LP (1956c), B.06; Moore, Byrd; & His Hot Shots. Mountain Songs, County 504, LP, cut# 2; Owens, Bill; and the Kinfolk. Songs of the Smokey Mountains, REM LP-1024, LP (197?), cut# 12; Preservation Hall Jazz Band. When the Saints Go Marching In. New Orleans, Vol. III, Columbia Special Prod. FM3860, LP (1983), cut# 3; Price, Bill & Betty. Bill and Betty Price, Rural Rhythm RRBP-239, LP (197?), cut#A.05; Robison, Carson; & his Pioneers. Immortal Carson Robison, Glendale GL 6009, LP (1978), cut# 17; Robison, Carson; & his Pioneers. Country-Western Radio. Rare Radio Recordings of Famous Count..., Radiola MR-1069, LP (1977), cut#B1.1; Rose, Buddy. Down Home Pickin', Dominion NR 3319, LP (197?), cut#B.04; Sandburg, Carl. Flat Rock Ballads, Columbia ML 5339, LP (196?), cut# 3; Sandburg, Carl. New Songs from the American Songbag, Lyrichord LL 4, LP (195?), cut#A.03; Seeger, Mike. Second Annual Farewell Reunion, Mercury SRMI-685, LP (1973), cut# 13; Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers. Ernest V. Stoneman & his Dixie Mountaineers. 1927-28, Historical HLP-8004, LP (196?), cut# 8; Tarleton, Jimmy/Jimmie. Mountain Blues, County 511, LP, cut# 3; Thompson, Joe. Family Tradition, Rounder 2161, CD (1999), cut#13; Thompson, Joe; and Odell Thompson. Oldtime Music from the North Carolina Piedmont, Global Village Global-C217, Cas (1989), cut# 4; Van Ronk, Dave. Gamblers Blues, Verve FV 9007, LP (196?), cut# 9; Van Ronk, Dave. Dave Van Ronk Sings Ballads, Blues and Spirituals, Folkways FS 3818, LP (1959), cut#B.02;

OTHER NAMES: Loveless Love; Kelly's Love; I Have No Loving Mother Now (Kelly Harrell); I Fell in Love with a Married Man

RELATED TO: I've Lost My Love; I Fell in Love with a Married Man; Take Me Back to Tennessee; Loveless Love;

SOURCES: WC Handy Autobiography; Mudcat Cafe; "The title appears in a list of fiddle tunes from the Ozark Mountains compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc). Randolph 793, "Careless Love" Randolph-Legman II, pp. 648-650, "Careless Love" Warner 167, "Careless Love" Sandburg, p. 21, "Careless Love" Lomax-FSUSA 20, "Careless Love" Lomax-FSNA 309, "Careless Love" Botkin-AmFolklr, pp. 901-902, "Careless Love" MWheeler, pp. 89-90, "Careless Love" Courlander-NFM, pp. 138-139, " PSeeger-AFB, p. 11, "Careless Love" Handy/Silverman-Blues, p. 55-57, "Careless Love" Silber-FSWB, p. 163, "Careless Love" Fuld-WFM, pp. 162-163, "Careless Love" American Songbag, Harcourt Brace Jovan..., Sof (1955), p 21; Here's to the Women, Syracuse Univ. Press, Sof (1987), p 6; Cooper, Wilma Lee. Songs to Remember, Cooper, Fol (19??), p23; Tarleton, Jimmy/Jimmie. Old-Time Country Guitar, Oak, Sof (1976), p36

Ballad Index Notes- Careless Love:
DESCRIPTION: A young girl's lament for having loved unwisely, worrying what her mother will say when the girl returns home, wearing her apron high (i. e. pregnant).
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (JAFL)
KEYWORDS: sex seduction pregnancy lament
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Randolph 793, "Careless Love" (3 texts, 1 tune. The "B" text is, however, derived mostly from other materials -- it does not even have the "Careless Love" refrain -- of which "Little Pink" seems to be the most important)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 498-500, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 793A)
Randolph-Legman II, pp. 648-650, "Careless Love" (2 texts)
Warner 167, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hudson 13, pp. 91-93, "The Lass of Roch Royal" (1 fragments, of which "A" is the "Pretty Little Foot" with a chorus from "Careless Love" and "B" is two "Pretty Little Foot" stanzas artificially and wrongly extracted from "Wild Bill Jones")
Sandburg, p. 21, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSUSA 20, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 309, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-AmFolklr, pp. 901-902, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
MWheeler, pp. 89-90, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
Courlander-NFM, pp. 138-139, "(Careless Love)" (fragments of two texts); pp. 272-273, "Careless Love" (1 tune, partial text)
PSeeger-AFB, p. 11, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune)
Handy/Silverman-Blues, p. 55-57, "Careless Love" (1 text, 1 tune, with a verse from "Free Little Bird" and others added by blues composers)
Silber-FSWB, p. 163, "Careless Love" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 162-163, "Careless Love"
DT, CARELOVE*
Roud #422
RECORDINGS:
Slim Barton & Eddie Mapp, "Careless Love" (QRS R-7088, 1929)
Dock Boggs, "Careless Love" (on Boggs3, BoggsCD1)
Anne, Judy & Zeke Canova, "Reckless Love" (Oriole 8044/Perfect 12685/Regal 10299, 1931)
[Tom] Darby & [Jimmie] Tarlton, "Careless Love" (Columbia 15651-D, 1931; rec. 1930)
Delmore Brothers, "Careless Love" (Bluebird B-7436, 1938)
Johnny Dodds w. Tiny Parham, "Careless Love" (Paramount 12483, 1927)
Fats Domino, "Careless Love" (Imperial 5145, 1951)
Four Southern Singers, "Careless Love" (Bluebird B-8392, 1940; rec. 1933)
Blind Boy Fuller, "Careless Love" (Vocalion 03457, 1937/Conqueror 9012, 1937/Melotone 8-02-66, 1938; rec. 1937)
W. C. Handy, "Careless Love" (AFS 1620 B3, 1938)
Ed Hudson, "Careless Love" (Champion 16464, 1932/Champion 40086, 1936; rec. 1931)
Johnson Brothers, "Careless Love" (Victor 20940, 1927)
Lonnie Johnson, "Careless Love" (OKeh 8635, 1928)
Lulu Johnson, "Careless Love Blues" (Vocalion 1193, 1928; Supertone S-2227, 1931; [as Lulu Williams] Banner 32387/Oriole 8119/Perfect 195/Romeo 5119, all 1932; all of these rec. 1928)
Ruth Johnson, "Careless Love" (Paramount 13060, 1931)
Asa Martin, "Careless Love" (Melotone 5-11-63/Oriole 5-11-63 [as by "Martin & Roberts"], 1935)
Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner, "Careless Love" (Vocalion 5125, 1927)
Brownie McGhee, "Careless Love" (on McGhee01, DownHome)
Byrd Moore & his Hot Shots, "Careless Love" (Columbia 15496-D, 1929)
Eva Parker, "Careless Love" (Victor V-38020, 1929; rec. 1928)
Riley Puckett, "Careless Love" (Columbia 15747-D, 1932; rec. 1931) (Bluebird B-5532/Montgomery Ward M-4507, 1934)
Pete Seeger, "Careless Love" (on PeteSeeger18)
Bessie Smith, "Careless Love Blues" (Columbia 14083-D, 1925) (Columbia 3172-D/Parlophone [UK] R-2479, 1938 -- I'm going to guess this is a different (electrical) recording from 14083-D)
Ernest V. Stoneman, "Careless Love" (Edison 52388, 1928) (CYL: Edison [BA] 5530, 1928)
Georgia White, "Careless Love" (Decca 7419, 1938)
Lee Wiley, "Careless Love" (Decca 132, 1934)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Butcher Boy" [Laws P24] (floating lyrics)
cf. "Waly Waly (The Water is Wide)"
cf. "Dink's Song" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Every Night When the Sun Goes In" (floating lyrics)
cf. "I Have No Loving Mother Now" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
I Have No Loving Mother Now (Kelly Harrell & Henry Norton, Victor 20935, 1927; on KHarrell02)
Loveless Love (Noble Sissle & his Sizzling Syncopators, Pathe 20493, 1921; Katherine Handy, Paramount 12011, 1922; Alberta Hunter w. Henderson's Dance Orch., Paramount 12018, 1922; Billie Holiday, OKeh 6064, 1941; Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys, Vocalion 04387, 1938)
NOTES: The "Loveless Love" lyrics seem to have been written by W. C. Handy in 1921, using the tune and structure of "Careless Love". He also seems to have claimed "Careless Love" at times, but in other contexts he called it a folk song. So do I. One online biography of Handy called it an 18th-century English folk song ("Dear Companion"?) which by the early 1800s had become a Black rivermen's song. No references, unfortunately. But Wheeler associates the song with the Ohio packet Dick Fowler, running between Cairo and Paducah. - PJS

NOTES: WC Handy said that Careless Love is one of the earliest blues songs. "Careless Love” has verses sixteen measures in length with the first line repeated three times and the "punch" or rhyming line as the fourth and final line of the stanza. Handy pointed out that it was the shortening of this form- two repeated lines instead of three- that became the standard twelve bar blues form.

According to Malcolm Douglas: "The tune is basically 'The Sprig of Thyme', and 'Careless Love' frequently includes floating verses familiar from songs like 'Died For Love'; so its antecedents are essentially British, though re-made in America with new stylistic influences." [mudcat discussion forum].

Peggy Seeger says 'Careless Love' descends from an English song 'You've Been Careless Love,' and she sings it in 3/4 time or waltz rhythm. The result sounds quite different from the more familiar tune variants associated with early African-American blues tradition. [Elisabeth Higgins Null with Charles H. Baum]

The song was sung by jazz musicians, blues musicians, and early country musicans, transcending racial barriers. Careless Love can be traced back to 1880 through Vance Randolph who collected the following fragment from an elderly gentleman, Mr J.E. Webster Groves, Missouri on April 8, 1948. He learned it about 1880:
 
What will Mammy say to me
What will Mammy say to me
What will Mammy say to me
When I go home with a big bell-ee?

I'll tell her to hold her tongue
I'll tell her to hold her tongue
I'll tell her to hold her tongue
She loved *fellers when she was young.

[Vance Randolph (Ed G.Legman) 'Blow the Candle Out: Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore Vol II' Uni Arkansas Press, 1992, p 647.] 

The song was in the repertoire of New Orleans jazz musician Buddy Bolden who played the song in the 1890s. One set of Bolden's lyrics were communicated by Susie Farr:

Ain't it hard to love another woman's man,
Ain't it hard to love another woman's man,
You can't get him when you want him,
You have to catch him when you can.

In 1921 W. C. Handy wrote "Loveless Love," using the tune and structure of "Careless Love." In his autobiography Handy said:

"Loveless Love is another of my songs of which one part has an easily traceable folk ancestry. It was based on the Careless Love melody that I had played first in Bessemer in 1892 and that had since become popular all over the South."

Handy recorded "Loveless Love" for Paramount in 1922 with his daughter Katherine singing backed by his Memphis Blues Band. Other early versions include Noble Sissle & his Sizzling Syncopators, Alberta Hunter, Billy Holiday, and Fats Waller (instrumental). Handy recorded a version, singing the song himself, in 1939 on the Variety label.

In 1926 WC Handy copyrighted his version of "Careless Love," the folk song. He recorded his version in 1938 and wrote about Careless Love and Loveless Love in his autobiography, Father of the Blues (Originally published by New York: Macmillan 1941, the below excerpt from the Da Capo Press paperback version pp 147 - 149):

"Loveless Love is another of my songs of which one part has an easily traceable folk ancestry. It was based on the Careless Love melody that I had played first in Bessemer in 1892 and that had since become popular all over the South. In Henderson I was told that the words of Careless Love were based on a tragedy in a local family, and one night a gentleman of that city's tobacco-planter aristocracy requested our band to play and sing this folk melody, using the following words:

You see what Careless Love has done,
You see what Careless Love has done
You see what Careless Love has done,
It killed the Governor's only son.

We did our best with these lines and then went into the second stanza:

Poor Archie didn't mean no harm,
Poor Archie didn't mean no harm,
Poor Archie didn't mean no harm

-But there the song ended. The police stepped in and stopped us. The song, they said, was a reflection on two prominent families. Careless Love had too beautiful a melody to be lost or neglected, however, and I was determined to preserve it.

[. . .] Having created a vogue for Careless Love, which John Niles calls Kelly's Love in his book of folk songs, I proposed to incorporate it in a new song with the verse in the three-line blues form. That week I went to Chicago, and while there I sat in Brownlee's barber shop and wrote Loveless Love, beginning with "Love is like a gold brick in a bunko game." There I wrote the music and made an orchestration which I took next door to Erskin Tate in the Vendome Theatre. His orchestra played it over, and it sounded all right. A copy was immediately sent to the printers.

Without waiting to receive a printed copy, however, I taught Loveless Love to Alberta Hunter, and she sang it at the Dreamland caberet. It made a bull's-eye. Before Alberta reached my table on the night she introduced the song, her tips amounted to sixty-seven dollars. A moment later I saw another lady give her twelve dollars for "just one more chorus." I knew then and there that we had something on our hands and the later history of the song bore this out."

WC Handy's "Loveless Love" is on YouTube: "This is one of the earliest recordings (Jan., 1922 for Paramount) of this moving composition by William Christopher Handy. In spite of the relatively poor sound quality, this song is obviously brilliantly performed by his daughter Katherine and Handy's Memphis Blues Orchestra, directed by W. C. Handy."

Here are the 1931 folk lyrics from Puckett:

CARELESS LOVE- Riley Puckett

[Source: transcription from Riley Puckett 'Old-Time Greats Vol 2' Old Homestead OHCD-4174. Riley recorded this twice: on 29 Oct 1931.(issued May 1932 as Co 15747-D) and on 29 March 1934 (issued in September 1934 as Bb B5532). There is no indication on the Old Homestead CD on which of these was the source of the reissue.]