Lady Gay- Kazee (KY) 1928 Recording
[Two versions; the first with music from 1928, the second is a live performance recorded in 1969. According to Roberts (In the Pine) Buell heard this in Magoffin County, KY. Roberts text (8 stanzas from Kazee in 1954) is similar to the 1969 recording (bottom of this page) without the 3rd stanza which Kazee added after 1954. ]
[Listen: Buell Kazee- Lady Gay]
Bio from Wiki: Buell Kazee (August 29, 1900 - August 31, 1976) was an American country and folk singer. He is considered one of the most successful folk musicians of the 1920s and experienced a career comeback during the American folk music revival of the 1960s due in part to his inclusion on the Anthology of American Folk Music.
Early life
Buell Kazee was born at the foot of Burton Fork, Kentucky, a mountain in Magoffin County. By the age of five, Kazee found publicity playing banjo at church. After he graduated high school, he studied English, Greek and Latin at Georgetown College.
Career
In 1927, Kazee he received an inquiry from Brunswick Records, asking if he would consider recording in their studio in New York City. Kazee traveled to New York, and eventually signed with the label. His first record was "Roll On John" backed with "John Hardy". Over the next two years, backed by an assortment of New York musicians, he recorded 51 songs, including such hits as "Gray Lady," "The Sporting Bachelors," and "The Little Orphan Child." His greatest success was On Top Of Old Smoky, which has been covered over 15,000 times.
Kazee's lyrics were often dominated by religious subjects, but also treated everyday problems of the working man. After his marriage in the early 1930s, he moved to the Vocalion label, but as the Depression worsened, Kazee recorded less and less, and eventually left the music business and worked for the next 22 years as a pastor in Morehead, Kentucky.
Withdrawal and revival
After the Great Depression in the United States, Kazee performed only rarely and devoted himself entirely to the ministry, the profession that he had actually wanted to pursue since his teens. During the 1960s folk music boom, Kazee began a comeback and started to perform again. He made joint appearances with other former folk stars like Dock Boggs and Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson at the Newport Folk Festival. He also wrote and published three books.
Buell Kazee died on 31 August 1976 at age 76.
Lady Gay- Buell Kazee (KY) 1928; Recorded 16 January 1928, Brunswick 212. From Folk Song America, Smithsonian Collection of Recordings.
[Listen: Buell Kazee- Lady Gay]
There was a lady and a lady gay
Of children she had three
She sent them away to the North Countree
For to learn their grammaree
They had not been there very long
Scarcely six months and a day
Till death, cold death, came hasting along
And stole those babes away
It was just about old Christmas time
The nights being cold and clear
She looked and she saw her three little babes
Come running home to her
She set a table both long and wide
And on it she put bread and wine-
Come eat, come drink, my three little babes
Come eat, come drink of mine
We want none of your bread, mother
Neither we do want your wine
For yonder stands our Savior dear
And to Him we must resign
Green grass grows over our heads, mother
Cold clay is under our feet
And every tear you shed for us
It wets our winding-sheet
THE LADY GAY- Source: transcription in booklet accompanying 'Buell Kazee' June Appal LP JA 009 of a recording of Buell Kazee at a Seattle concert in 1969. The recording was made by Mark Wilson.
1. There was a lady and a lady gay
And children she had three
She sent them away to the north country
For to learn their grammarie
2. They had not been there very long
Scarcely six months and a day
Till death, cold death, came hastening along
And took those babes away
3. 'There is a king in heaven', she cried
'He wears a golden crown
Pray, send me down my three little babes
Tonight or in the morning soon'
4. It was just about old Christmas time
The nights being long and clear
She looked and she saw her three little babes
Come running home to her
5. She set a table both long and wide
And on it she put bread and wine -
'Come eat, come drink, my three little babes
'Come eat, come drink of mine'
6. 'We want none of your bread, mother
Neither do we want your wine
For yonder stands our Saviour dear
And to Him we must resign'
7. She fixed a bed in a little back room
And over it she put white sheets
And over it the golden spread
Where those three babes might sleep
8. 'Take it off, take it off', cried the oldest one
'Take it off, take it off', cried she
'For yonder stands our Saviour dear
And with Him you soon will be'
9. 'Green grass grows over our bed, mother
Cold clay lies under our feet
And every tear you shed for us
It wets our winding sheet'