Matthy Groves- Coates (TN) 1916 Sharp H
[My title. Single stanza with music from Sharp/Campbell English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians I. Also in Sharp/Karpeles 1932, p. 161-182, versions A-Q. Notes from 1932 edition and notes from Sharp's diary follow.
Mike Yates article on the Coates: The Greatest Prize may be found here: http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/coates.htm
R. Matteson 2015]
1932 Edition Notes: No. 23. Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard.
Texts without tunes:— Child s English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 81. Reed Smith's South Carolina Ballads, p. 125. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 94. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxiii. 371; xxv. 182.
Texts with tunes:—Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, p. 92. Chappel's Popular Music of the Olden Times, i. 170. MotherwelJ's Minstrelsy,
Appendix, tune No. 21. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs of Nova Scotia, No. 8. Wyman and Brockway's Twenty Kentucky Mountain Songs, pp. 22 and 62. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxx. 309. British Ballads from Maine, p. 150. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 289 and 577.
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Sharp diary 1916 page 264. Friday 1 September 1916 - Rocky Fork
Mrs Crane having arranged to take us to see her father Mr Blankenship we left home at 7 and called for her. She took us a weary stony walk up to the top of Higgins Creek where we made friends with the B[lankenship] family a large number of relatives belonging to three or more generations! Got a few songs and on the way home called on Mr and Mrs Coates from the latter of whom I got a fine ballad The False Knight [on the Road] and an interesting variant of Wraggle Taggle Gipsies O. Altogether a very successful if fatiguing day. We must have walked 14 miles over very bad tracks. We got back thoroughly tired out at 6.30 p.m. nearly 12 hours since we left in the morning.
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James Gabriel Coates (born July 12, 1856 - died March 8, 1929) was the son of John W Coates and Winnie Emmaline Coates, née Ray. In 1892 James Gabriel Coates married Eliza (Liza) Jane Allen (born November 15, 1866 - died February 10, 1936), the daughter of Nathan O Allen and Martha Lucinda Allen, née Wheeler. Despite living in 'grinding poverty' (a phrase used by their grandchildren) Gabriel and Eliza managed to raise a large family, comprising 4 sons and 6 daughters, one of whom, Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Jane (born 1902 -died 1995), was singing a 27 stanza version of Mathey Groves until shortly before she died. Lizzy had made it to college and became a teacher, as did two of her sisters. According to Coates' family tradition, the first members of the family had arrived in America as 'Irish missionaries' and had settled originally in South Carolina; whilst the Allen family believed that they were of 'German-Dutch' origin. This latter comment is interesting, especially as when Cecil Sharp met Mrs Coates' brother, the singer John Allen of Boldens Creek, Yancey County, NC, on October 7, 1918, Sharp called Mr Allen 'a tall Scotchman'. [see Yates article]
H. [Matthy Groves] Sung by Mrs. JAS. GABRIEL COATES at Flag Pond, Sept. 1, 1916
Pentatonic. Mode 3.
1. One holiday, one righteous day,
One holiday in the year,
Little Matthy Groves went out to church,
The righteous word to hear,
The righteous word to hear.