Sweet William - (NY) 1942 Frank Luther Songbook
[Unknown informant, arranged by Frank Luther. From Frank Luther; Americans and Their Songs; New York: Harper & Bros. 1942. Also Bronson TTCB, II, 1962, No. 56. Luther teamed up with Carson Robison in the late 1920s. Part of a bio from Wiki follows.
R. Matteson 2014]
Frank Luther (August 4, 1899- November 16, 1980) was an American country music singer, dance band vocalist, playwright, songwriter and pianist.
Born Francis Luther Crow on a farm near Lakin, Kansas, forty miles from the Colorado line, he was raised on a farm near Hutchinson, Kansas, where his father, William R. Crow, and mother, Gertrude Phillips Crow, dealt in livestock and trotting horses. He began to study piano at age 6, improvising his own music when repetitious exercises bored him, and began vocal instruction at 13.
Three years later, he toured the Midwest as tenor with a quartet called The Meistersingers. He began studying at the University of Kansas, but attended a revival meeting conducted by Jesse Kellems and was so deeply impressed that he accepted an offer from the evangelist to become his musical director. During a subsequent stop in Iola, Kansas, young Crow himself was ordained, despite his never having studied for the ministry.
By 1921, the Reverend Francis Luther Crow was in the pulpit of the First Christian Church in Bakersfield, California. There, he organized a 30-voice children's choir, an 80-voice adult choir, and two church orchestras. Writing and delivering his weekly sermons proved more problematic, and the Boy Preacher, as he was known locally, resigned to devote his creative energies to the world of music.
Returning to Kansas, he married vocalist/musician Zora Layman on May 8, 1920, and the young couple eventually worked their way to New York City. In 1926, he was seriously pursuing further vocal training when he was invited to join the DeReszke Singers, as tenor/accompanist. They declared his surname, Crow, to be un-musical, and so he dropped it and became Frank Luther from that day on. The quartet toured with humorist Will Rogers, with whom Frank spent considerable time while on the road.
Luther joined a popular quartet, The Revelers, as tenor in 1927. They toured the British Isles, where Frank met the future Queen of the United Kingdom and did a set accompanied on the drums by the Prince of Wales. His career seemed to be at its zenith, but he contracted a severe cold on the way back to New York. A long-lasting sinus infection and infected throat robbed his ability to sing for nearly a year. His voice returned in a painfully slow manner.
In 1928, with his singing only gradually returning to top form, Frank met and became acquainted with fellow Kansan Carson Robison, who had teamed with tenor Vernon Dalhart to make many dozens of top-selling recordings of rural American favorites, shortly to be known in the trade as hillbilly music. Robison and Dalhart were severing their recording partnership, and it was suggested that Luther listen to some Dalhart records and seek to approximate his style. From 1928 to 1932, Frank Luther recorded country music with Carson Robison. Their recordings, made for several record companies and issued on a variety of labels, were extremely popular. "Barnacle Bill the Sailor," "When Your Hair Has Turned to Silver," "When It's Springtime in the Rockies," "When the Bloom is On The Sage," "Little Green Valley," "Down on the Old Plantation," "I'm Alone Because I Love You," "The Utah Trail," "Goin' Back to Texas," "Left My Gal in the Mountains," "In the Cumberland Mountains," "An Old Man's Story, "Little Cabin in the Cascade Mountains," and "The Birmingham Jail" sold a great many copies and influenced future generations of country singers.
[Sweet William] -From Frank Luther's Songbook, 1942, p. 20.
1. Sweet William arose one early May morning
And dress'd himself in blue.
Said she; "Come and tell of the long, long love
Between Lady Marg'ret [1]and you."
2. "I know nothing of lady Margaret-
Lady Margaret knows nothing of me;
But before tomorrow night
Lady Margaret my bride shall see."
3. Lady Margaret was sitting in her dining-room door
Combing back her long yellow hair--
But who did she spy but Sweet Willie- and his bride
In the churchyard as they passed by?
4. And down she threw her ivory comb.
And back she threw her hair,
And down she fell from her dining-room door.
She was never more seen there.
5. The day's spent, the night is coming on,
Most of the men are asleep;
And who did she spy but lady Margaret's ghost
A-standing at his bed-feet.
6. "It's how do you like your bed?
How do you like your sheet?
And how do you like your new wedded wife
Who is now in your arms asleep?"
7. "And I do like my bed," says he,
"And better do I like my sheet;
But best of all is the pale-faced ghost
Who stands at my bed's feet."
8. The night's been spent, the day's coming on,
Most of the men arc awake.
Sweet William says, "I'm troubled in my head
With a dream I dreamed last night.
9. "Such dreams! such dreams! they can't be good.
Such dreams, they may come true.
I dreamed my hall was full of white swine
And my loved bride was flown to tears."
10. He called and he called to his merry men,
He called them one, two, three-
And he got release from his new wedded wife
Lady Margaret to go to see.
11. He rode and he rode till he came to the door;
Loud did he knock and call.
And who was more ready than Lady Margaret's brother
To come down and let him in?
12. "Where is Lady Margaret?" says he,
"Is she in her kitchen or her hall?
Or is she in her highmost chamber
Among her merry maids all?"
13. "She's neither in her kitchen,
She's neither in her hall;
She's in that coffin, made of white lead,
With her pale face turned to the wall."
14. "Fold down, fold down, that lily-white sheet
That's made of holland so fine,
And let me kiss the clay-cold lips
That oftentimes kissed mine."
15. Lady Margaret died like it was today,
Sweet William died like tomorrow.
Lady Margaret was buried 'neath one willow tree,
Sweet William beneath the other.
1. sung "Marg'ret" throughout