Wind and Rain- Armstrong (Illinois) Rec. 1961
[This is the first popular cover recording of "Wind and Rain," made by George and Gerry Armstrong in 1961 on the Armstrong's Simple Gifts album. It also appears on "The wheel of the year: thirty years with the Armstrong Family' [Flying Fish FF70594, 1992]. Apparently this is a cover of the traditional recording of Dan Tate from Fletcher Collins Collection which was recorded for the Library of Congress in 1941. A similar version were collected in the region from Kilby Snow (1969). The extant version with this refrain was collected by Buchanan in West Virginia in 1931 from a Rev. Sims (Bronson No. 93).
R. Matteson 2011, 2014]
Liner notes- Simple Gifts 1961: George and Gerry Armstrong and their two children, Becky and Jenny, live in Wilmette, Illinois where George makes his living as a book illustrator. However, most of the social life of the family centers around the pursuit of folklore - the songs, tales, games and customs that comprise the folk heritage of the English-speaking peoples.
(9) THE WIND AND THE RAIN - This comes from the collection of Fletcher Collins of Staunton, Virginia [Collins recorded Dan Tate's "Wind and Rain" in 1941 and this a simplified version.] It is a fragment of a longer, ancient ballad usually called: "The Two Sisters" or "Binnorie." Versions of this ballad have been collected all over the United States, The British Isles and Scandinavia. In most of the old world versions of the story, the older sister drowns the younger out of jealousy over a young man. The body of the drowned Girl is found by a harpist or fiddler who fashions a musical instrument from her hair and bones. He takes the instrument to the court of the king (who is the father of the sisters), and there the instrument, made of the magic bones, sings by itself and accuses the elder sister of the murder. However, in almost all the American versions, the supernatural element has been lost. The haunting fragment sung here is one of the rare American texts that retains this motif.
WIND AND RAIN- George and Gerry Armstrong, 1961
Two little sisters went a-walking one fine day
Oh the wind and the rain
One pushed the other into the water, water deep
And she cried the dreadful wind and the rain
Along came the miller with his old grab hook
Oh the wind and the rain
He fetched her out from the bottom of the brook
And she cried the dreadful wind and the rain
He made fiddle strings from her long yellow hair
Oh the wind and the rain
He made fiddle pegs from her long finger bones
And she cried the dreadful wind and the rain
The only tune that my fiddle can play
Oh the wind and the rain
The only only tune that my fiddle can play
Is, "Oh the dreadful wind and the rain."