Topic: Harmony/Hearing Chord Changes

[Rivers]

Fascinating, I plain assumed the Weavers lifted it from Lead, who lifted it from an Irish song, but if I'm reading it right apparently not.

Here's the link to the lyric discussion of If It Wasn't For Dicky: http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=4318.msg72663#msg72663

[Mr.OMuck]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almanac_Singers


The Almanacs Preceded the Weavers who were Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, Lee Hayes and Pete Seeger. The Almanacs had a revolving roster which at times included Woody Guthrie, Millard Lampell, Sis Cunningham, Fred Hellerman, Pete Seeger Josh White, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Alan Lomax.


 That was from memory, this is from Wikipdeia..

[/size]Performers who sang with the group at various times included [/color][/size]Sis Cunningham[/color][/size], [/color][/size](John) Peter Hawes[/color][/size] and his brother [/color][/size]Baldwin "Butch" Hawes[/color][/size], [/color][/size]Bess Lomax Hawes[/color][/size] (wife of Butch and sister of[/color][/size]Alan Lomax[/color][/size]), [/color][/size]Cisco Houston[/color][/size], [/color][/size]Arthur Stern[/color][/size], [/color][/size]Josh White[/color][/size], [/color][/size]Jackie (Gibson) Alper[/color][/size], [/color][/size]Burl Ives[/color][/size], [/color][/size](Hiram) Jaime Lowden[/color][/size] and [/color][/size]Sam Gary[/color][/size] And Will Geer.[/color]

[/size]There is one Almanac compilation CD out [/color][/size]there which is terrific if you can find it.[/color]

[Mr.OMuck]

My Folklore source says:


"

[size=78%]that's horsebleep about being lost, several Irish singers know the complete song. true the direct connection is gone, but sam kennedy may have been recorded in england by peter kennedy (?) but that's just my guess. i would love to hear sam after hearing the rainbow quest story as told by pete and memorizing that story. the real surprise is how little she recorded leadbelly-at least she preserved at least 2 radio programs with him and woody."[/size][/color]

[Willie Poor Boy]

I wasn't suggesting it was lost, attached here is a copy of some sheet music as it is played today (it is taken from a book of airs for the penny whistle by Tomas O'Canainn--I hope this falls under the definition of fair use, otherwise I'll take it down).  I was suggesting the melody that is in use among contemporaries doesn't resemble what Lead Belly played.

It would be interesting although maybe impossible to codify Lead Belly's instincts in hearing and recasting music in his own image and then working backwards in those cases where the source is missing.

At any rate, I was fortunate to learn this song from John last week (the lessons on his website are uniformly excellent) and after I read his post above thought it might be fun as a partial exercise in reconstruction to play the song through with Lead Belly's A7 and then again with the A minor 7 in the same place.  Well, it would be too much to say that it is an attempt at reconstructing anything but it is interesting to hear the differences.  Don't worry, I'm working on the flaws in my playing.

[Johnm]

Thanks for posting the music to to "Drimin Donn", Brad.  It is indeed very different from Leadbelly's take on the melody.  And it's interesting contrasting the A7 hybrid Dorian melody/Mixolydian harmony as Leadbelly did it with the diatonic Dorian Am7 version.  You've also provided me with the answer on how to post standard notation on the site--scan it and save it as a .pdf.  That's something I've been wanting to do for some time but didn't know how best to do.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
One of the oddest harmonizations that anyone in the style came up with was Leadbelly's version of Joe Burke and Al Dubin's "Dancing With Tears In My Ears".  Just to get a Pop rendition of his era as a sort of reference point, here is Ruth Etting's version of the song from 1930:



Here is Leadbelly's version of the song, from his "Last Sessions".  He omits the verse, and does only the chorus:



Hearing Leadbelly's version after the Ruth Etting version, I'm always left with a sort of "You can't get there from here." feeling.

All best,
Johnm