Songs & Ballads Sung in Overton County, Tennessee: A Collection- Crabtree 1936
["Songs and Ballads Sung in Overton County, Tennessee: A Collection" by Lillian Crabtree, 1936, is 316 pages long. It was her Master's thesis, George Peabody College for Teachers in 1936, which resulted in the texts of 323 songs and ballads, without music.
There are 12 chapters. Attached to this page are the 10 chapters with song texts-- the first (Introduction) and last (Conclusions) chapters do not have song texts and they will eventually appear below. There is no Table of Contents that lists individual songs or an Index- but I've made one- see immediately below. From my copy of her typed ms. three pages are missing, p, 181, 246 and 250. Since I am not including page number per se-- this will not be an issue except that at lest two songs will be missing.
While a student at George Peabody College in Nashville, Crabtree traveled throughout Overton County by auto and on horseback looking for old songs. Many of the songs, are copyrighted early country songs heard on the radio by groups like The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. There are a few Child ballads but not many (three versions of Barbara Allen, Love Henery, The Farmer's Curst Wife, George Collins, Bailor's Daughter and one of The House Carpenter) and a few local ballads (Braswell Boys). There are almost no attributions- this is simply a collection of any and all the songs the author could find in Overton County 1935-1936-- mostly folk songs and early country radio songs.
It's clear that Crabtree used printed material, newspaper clippings, and that most of the texts (she calls poems) were handwritten by the informants and given to her. In my opinion, a small number were actually collected and written down by her from the singing of an informant. The effect of radio and recordings is obvious. There are songs from the Carter family and songs from and about Jimmie Rodgers (his name spelled wrong) as well as other songs from the old-time country record era which began in 1923. There are some unusual texts and some texts that pre-date recordings made in 1936 and later. For example, the Carters recorded "My Clinch Mountain Home" in 1936. They collected and arranged some of the same texts that Crabtree found--her version of Clinch Mountain shows an earlier, yet different version of the famous Carter recording.
Crabtree's contention that the western songs came from people migrating from Texas is amusing, of course that may be possible. I believe these songs were learned from regional performers performing in the area, radio, recordings and print sources. Because there's virtually no information about sources of these songs, we don't know.
Very little is known about Lillian Crabtree (b. August 18, 1908 in Tennessee), in The Peabody Reflector - Volume 10, Issue 7 - Page 279 we find: Miss Lillian Crabtree and Mr. Victor Dobras were married at Milligan College, Tennessee on June 15th. Mr. and Mrs. Dobras are living at 2545 Lexington Avenue, Lorain, Ohio, where he is a member of the English faculty in the high school.
She still in Ohio in 1940 and by 1949 she follows her husband, Victor E. Dobras, Assistant Principal, Trinidad High School, Trinidad to Colorado. Then she dies Dec. 1986 at Shawnee Mission, Johnson, Kansas. Apparently, she never published or followed up her massive collection done as a Masters thesis.
The condition of this manuscript makes it impossible to use OCR and therefore I will be doing selected songs and ballads and if I can get a better copy I may do more someday.
R. Matteson 2014]
CONTENTS:
1. INTRODUCTION p.1-6
2. FAMILY LIFE p.7
Little Brown Cot
Blue Ridge Mountain Home
My Clinch Mountain Home
Little Home in Tennessee
The Old Door Step
Friends of Long Ago
A Message From Home Sweet Home
The Drunkard's Lone Child
The Wild Moor
If I Only Had a home Sweet Home
Over the Hill to the Poorhouse
I wish I was Single Again
I Wish I was Single Again (2)
Ain't Gonna Be Treated This-A-Way
Married Man's Troubles
Now Moses
Advice to Young Men
Boys Keep Away From the Gals
Grandma's Advice
The Cumberland
You'll Never Know a Mother's Love Again
I've No Mother now
The picture on the Wall
Motherless Children
You'll Never miss Mother
Shake Hands with Mother Again
Ten Thousand Miles away
The Lightning Express
I have no Loving Mother Now
Pictures form life's Other Side
Mother Queen of my Heart
Mother and Home
There'll Come A Time
Hello Central, Give Me Heaven
Step-Mother
Don't Grieve Your Mother
3. WAR AND WAR INFLUENCE
(Hush-A-Do)
The Soldier Sweetheart
After the War
The Dying Soldier Boy
The Dying Soldier
The Soldier's Letter
Brother Greene
The Drummer Boy
Sailor Boy
The Navy Song
My Pretty Quadroon
The Pretty Octoroon [sic]
My Happy Home in Kentucky
4. CRIME
The Braswell Boys
Charles Giteau
The Murder of James A. Garfield
Bad Companions
Gambling on the Sabbath Day
John Hearty
Rose Conna Lee
Knoxville Girl
Knoxville Girl (2)
Frankie and Johnny
Jesse James
Twenty-One Years
Twenty One Years [Answer to Twenty-One Years]
My Walking Cane
The Boston Burglar
Prisoner No. 999
Mary Phagen [Fagan]
Ommie Wise
Little Omi Wise
When the Lilies Bloom
Prisoner's Song
Prisoner's Song (2)
Moonlight and Skies
New Birmingham Jail
When It's Lamp Lighting Time in the Valley
In the Jailhouse Now
Ninety-Nine Years
The Drunkard's Dream
Drunkard's Hell
My Tender Parents
5. RELIGION
Lonesome Valley
One Day Nearer Home
Can't Feel at Home Anymore
Listening All the Night Long
Little Feet Be Careful
Diamonds in the Rough
Shine on Me
God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign
The Royal Telephone
The Two Rulers
Two Young Men
The Old Woman and the Devil [Farmer's Curst Wife]
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
Be kind to a Man When He's Down
6. DEATH
The Blind Child
Little Bessie
The Orphan Girl
The Dying Girl's Message
The Dying Girl's Message (Dying Nun's Message)
Two Little Orphans
Two Little Orphans (2)
Row Me Over The Tide
A Drunkard's Child
A Beautiful Chair
Faded Flowers
Musician's Harp
Dreaming of the Loved Ones
The Wreck of the Old '97
The Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven (2)
True and Trembling Brakeman
True and Trembling Brakeman (2)
Engine one Forty-Three
The Wreck of Number Nine
Death of John Henery [sic]
A Dream of a Miner's Child
Fate of Floyd Collins
Little Mary Fagan (2)
Kitty Wells
The Girl I Left in Sunny Tennessee
George Collins (Child 76)
Laura's Grave
Put My Little Shoes Away
The Letter Edged in Black
Baggage Coach Ahead
He is Coming To Us Dead
My Buddy
The Life of Jimmie Rogers [sic]
Death of Jimmie Rogers [sic]
Johnson and Dickson
Don't Go Out Tonight, My Darling
Conversation With Death
7. WESTERN SONGS
The Dying Cowboy
The Dying Cowboy (2)
The Young Cowboy
The Dying Cowboy (3) [Bury Me on the Lone Prairie]
Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie (2)
I Have No Use For The Women
Bury Me Out on the Prairie (3)
The Dying Cowgirl
The Dying Ranger
The Texas Rangers
The Texas Ranger (2)
When the Work's All Done This Fall
[California Earthquake]
Yodeling cowboy
Old Chisholm Trail
The Silver Rio Grande
My Texas Home
There's a Home in Wyoming
Good-Bye Old Paint
Wild and Reckless Hobo
The Gal I left behind Me
The Yellow Roe of Texas
When it's Springtime in the Rockies
8. HUMOR AND NONSENSE
How to Make Love
The Bulldog Down in Sunny Tennessee
Chawin' Chawin' Gum
Chewing Gum (2)
The Little pink Dress
The Possum and the Coon
I Love That Cindy
Frog Went A Courtin'
Away Out on that mountain
Bachelor's Hall
It'll Never Happen Again
Blue Yodel (Muleskinner Blues)
The Bug Song
All-Go-Hungry Hash Blues
Great Grandad
My Old Coon Dog
Swapped My Horse and Got Me A Mule
Hi-Rye Hoopdy-Do
The Old Cow Crossed The Road
The Old Grey Goose
Hole in the Bottom of the sea.
It was Midnight on the Ocean
[Frog Went A- Courtin'] (2)
[Ida Red]
9. VARIED SUBJECTS IN BALLAD AND SONG
Cooling Spring (Merry Merry Little Spring)
Whippin' That Old T.B. (Rodgers)
Advice to Wife Seekers
Old and Only in the Way
The Ship that Never Returned
[Blind Man's Ballad]
Mississippi Flood
You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone
Old Charlie
My Grandfather's Clock
10. BLUES
Railroad Blues
Brakeman's Blues
Memphis Yodel
Blue Ridge Mountain Blues
Jimmy's Mean Mama Blues
Jimmie's Texas Blues
Old Virginia Blues (East Carolina Blues)
Sissy Cater Blues
Blue Yodel (T for Texas)
Gambling Barroom Blues (Related: St. James Infirmary)
Those Gambler's Blues (St. James Infirmary)
Waiting for a Train
Oklahoma Blues
Mississippi Valley Blues
11. LOVE
Barbara Allen (1) [Child 84]
Barbara Allen (2)
Barbara Ellen (3)
Careless Love
The House Carpenter [Child 243]
Her Bright Eyes Haunt Me Still
Flirting
Simply A Flirt
Forsaken Love
The Shadow of the Pine
Jack and Joe
You've Treated Me Mean and Dirty
Lullaby Yodel
Curly-Headed Baby
Isle of Capree
May I Sleep in your Barn Tonight, Mister?
Lorena
Joe Hardy
The New River Train
My Little Lady
Thous Hast Wounded the Spirit That Love Thee
Old Ties
Lover's Farewell
The Lazy boy
Gypsy's Warning
The Man's Reply to the Gypsy's Warning
Girl's Reply to the Gypsy's Warning
I Have No One To Love Me
As I Walked out One Morning Fair
Brown Eyes
Green Ireland
Thou Hast Learned To Love Another (1)
Thou Hast Learned To Love Another (2)
Old Smokey (1)
On Top of Old Smokey (2)
For the Sake of Days gone By
The Fatal Wedding
Ella Dare
Charlie Brooks
Wildwood Flower (Twine Mid The Riglets)
After the Ball
Broken Engagement
Bury me Beneath The Willow (1)
Weeping Willow (2)
little Rosewood Casket (1)
Little Rosewood Casket (2)
Little Rosewood Casket (3)
A Package of old Letters
I'll Be All Smiles Tonight, Love
Bring Back My Blue-Eyed Boy To Me
Blue Eyes (I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes)
Leave Me Darling, I Don't Mind (Blues)
A Forsaken Lover
Conquer Pride
Poor Nell
Loving Henery [Child 68, Young Hunting]
The Two Lovers
The two Lovers (2)
Flo-Ella
Pearl Bryant
Pearl Bryant (2)
Sweet Fern (Sweet Birds)
Sweet Birds (2)
Still I Love Thee
Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
The Sailor's Plea
The Maple on the Hill
I'm Lonely Tonight Sweetheart
Will You Miss Me (When I'm Gone)
Will You Love Me When I'm Old
Little Darling
Are You Tired of Me My Darling?
Black-Eyed Susan
Little Sweetheart
Be Nobody's Darling But Mine
The Red River Valley (1)
The Red River Valley (2)
The Red River Valley (3)
The Red River Valley (4)
We Parted by the Riverside
Don't Be Weary Little Darling
Sweetheart Come Back To Me
Bye, Bye, Till I See You Again
Down Beside A Brook
More Pretty Girls Than One
Nobody's Darling (1)
I'm Nobody's Darling (2)
Peach Picking Time In Georgia (McMichen/Rodgers)
The Roving Gambler
The Sweet, Long Ago
What Is A Home Without Love?
Lassie Mohee (1)
The Pretty Mohee (2)
On the Banks of the Wabash
Such A Happy Little Girl Am I
Tell Me
When The Mountain Laurels Bloom
Jennie, The Flower of Kildare
Carolina Moon
Silvery Moon
Sadie Ray
I'll Remember You Love In My Prayers
The Whip-Poor-Will
The Storms Are On The Ocean
Down Among the Budded Roses
There's a Good Girl In The Mountains
The Little Brown Jug
Sparking on Sunday Night
I love Little Willie
My Happy Little Home in Arkansaw
The Boys Won't Do To Trust
The Aggravating Beauty Lulu Wall (Carter Family) (1)
Lulu Wall (2)
Meet Me in the Moonlight (Prisoner's Song- Dalhart)
Katy At The Gate
You're the Only Girl I Ever Cared About
My Mother Was A Lady
Two Sweethearts
Somebody
Kitty Kline
When I was A Boy from the Mountains
I Love You Best of All
You're As Welcome As the Flowers in May
Sweet Bunch of Daisey's
You and My Guitar
Mary and Willie
The Bailor's Daughter (Bailiff's Daughter- Child 105)
The Merchant's Daughter (Dog and Gun)
The Ways Courting Breeches
Barney McCoy
Maggie Darling, Now Goodbye
12. CONCLUSIONS- CHAPTER XII
Of the three hundred twenty--three songs and ballads in this study, thirty-three appear in he chapter on family life, twelve in the one on war, eighteen in the one on religion, thirty-five in the one on death, nineteen in the one southern life, twenty-five in the one on humor and nonsense, ten in the one on varied subjects, fifteen in the one on blues, and one hundred-twenty in the one on love.
One hundred twenty songs classify themselves in the love division in the addition to the appearance of love in the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth chapters, with varying degrees of emphasis. The ninety-seven outside the limits of the group of happy love, in the chapter on love, little need be said about the appearance of love in other chapters to show that unhappy love is the predominating theme. In the chapters on war, crime, death, western songs, and blues, it is evident, however, that the majority still deal with unhappy love.
Death appears to be the theme next in rank of preference. Thirty-five songs under that classification, with a strong tendency to make it outstanding in the second, third, fourth, fifth and seventh chapters and a minor touch in the ninth and eleventh chapters, makes it next to love in rank.
The second in rank according to number of poems is crime the chapter on crime has more songs than the one on death, but crime does not permeate the other chapters, and has therefore, slightly less significance.
Lillian Crabtree