Season 265 "Golden Age of Ukulele"

A special favor was awarded to me by our dear host. It seems he feels for someone like me that gets an idea stuck in my head. I did a song for the Hawaiian playlist to which there is none :(

Here is my forth song.

Ha Ha Val, it seems as though you are not the only special one here <snicker snicker>

This may or may not be a message to France :rolleyes:

 
lelouden said:
A special broadcast and forecast ALERT!

A storm has started to brew in France and is headed to America where two storms may collide and a wrath with ensue. It seems as if nature is aware of this and in the event that all our computers blow up when this happens let it be known that the wrath in France was very well aware that the wrath in America started first. It appears that the wrath in France is planning to arrive on its target first but alas the wrath in America has already landed. What we are hoping is that the wrath in America is able to get out of the path of the wrath of France and there is no destruction.
However, we ask that you be prepared for the worst and prepare now. Get your supplies in order and find shelter ASAP!

As a side note~ This wrath may cause several mini wraths to appear. It is to be expected and allowed!
Click to expand...

He! He! Linda, my "wrath" (lethal though it is), would never be directed towards you! Please be assured that steps have been taken (I am unable to go into details here as we would be contravening the Official Secrets Act) to divert the said "wrath" before it arrives in your Country. I can only say that missiles have been deployed and that the threat level is now at zero. I should like to reassure you and your fellow Countrymen that there is no need for alarm and that no computers will implode/explode as a result of this preventative action. In so far as the "mini wraths" are concerned, we must, for the moment, await further developments. (And, CeeJay, my surname is NOT "Kyrie"!)
 
lelouden said:
A special favor was awarded to me by our dear host. It seems he feels for someone like me that gets an idea stuck in my head. I did a song for the Hawaiian playlist to which there is none :(

Here is my forth song.

Ha Ha Val, it seems as though you are not the only special one here <snicker snicker>

This may or may not be a message to France :rolleyes:

Click to expand...


Now THAT is a very pretty song, Linda ... is it Hawaiian? I am most interested in this non existent Hawaiian Playlist! Is there also, perchance, an Arizonan/Arizonian(?) Playlist? OH DEAR, I THINK I SHALL HAVE TO SHUT UP ... TALK ABOUT LOWERING THE TONE; THERE ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY TRYING TO POST VIDEOS HERE!!!
 
LimousinLil said:
Now THAT is a very pretty song, Linda ... is it Hawaiian? I am most interested in this non existent Hawaiian Playlist! Is there also, perchance, an Arizonan/Arizonian(?) Playlist? OH DEAR, I THINK I SHALL HAVE TO SHUT UP ... TALK ABOUT LOWERING THE TONE; THERE ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY TRYING TO POST VIDEOS HERE!!!
Click to expand...

IamNoMan said:

Rant Warning:
I don't like Rules; but I dislike squabbling even more. Please play Nice!
end of Rant.
Click to expand...

Tee Hee Hee Hee Hee Hee hee :uhoh:
 
Did someone say "wrath?"

khan.gif
 
redpaul1 said:
It would be interesting to have some references for that discussion. AFIAA, there were no "St James'" infirmaries in New Orleans (http://www.old-new-orleans.com/NO_hospitals.html), St Louis (https://www.builtstlouis.net/stmarysinfirmary.html) nor in Memphis (https://goo.gl/ZXX8fo ). But there is a St James' hospital in line one of "The Unfortunate Rake."

The most highly regarded investigation into the origins of this song (I Went Down to St. James Infirmary: Investigations in the Shadowy World of Early Jazz-Blues... Robert W. Harwood, Harland Press 2008 (2nd edn 2015) ISBN978-0-9809743-3-1) states:

If there is a (single) original American locale for the song, Galveston TX, is as a good a candidate as any


Though the verses don't have much connection with the other variants, it's the last two lines in the refrain that give this particular version of the Buck's Elegy' its unique quality, and so put Galveston in the frame as the original locale of "St James' Infirmary Blues."

Who knows? Half the fun lies in the (strong!) possibility that there'll never be a definitive answer.
Click to expand...

It is my opinion the The St James Infirmary is an American Song that comes from the "Unfortunate Rake" tradition. Yellow Fever Was a huge problem along the Southern Mississippi Valley prior to the Spanish American War when Walter Reed and his colleagues learned how to contain it. In 1873 20,000 died of the epidemic. In 1878 in Memphis 5,000 died. Kate Bionda, a restaurant owner was the first to die. The cities of St Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and Galveston for that matter all have Roman Catholic Parishes Named St James. Presumably they all had infirmarys. The RC infirmary I was born in in Teaneck New Jersey burned when I was young. The records with it. I have no birth certificate because of this. I have no documentation for the Van Ronk Discussion except to say he started it at the Cherry Tree Club, Uof P campus, Philadelphia one Sunday night in the 1980's. I was there. As you say it is all part of the fun.
 
An entry from sunny Finland, no snowstorms here this week - instrumental version of "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" (1930) by Roy Turk and Fred E. Ahlert.
 
I hope this fits the theme ok. An original I wrote back in November. Based on a picture a friend took of some Roses still in bloom in Rochester last November. She wrote "Roses in November" as the caption on facebook. It struck me, and a song soon followed.

:)

 
Don't know, if Harry Owens wrote it. The San Jose Uke Club gives Owens and also Doug Renolds & Don McDiarmid as authors.
But it's truely unruely ukululy!

 
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redpaul1 said:
It would be interesting to have some references for that discussion. AFIAA, there were no "St James'" infirmaries in New Orleans (http://www.old-new-orleans.com/NO_hospitals.html), St Louis (https://www.builtstlouis.net/stmarysinfirmary.html) nor in Memphis (https://goo.gl/ZXX8fo ). But there is a St James' hospital in line one of "The Unfortunate Rake."

The most highly regarded investigation into the origins of this song (I Went Down to St. James Infirmary: Investigations in the Shadowy World of Early Jazz-Blues... Robert W. Harwood, Harland Press 2008 (2nd edn 2015) ISBN978-0-9809743-3-1) states:

If there is a (single) original American locale for the song, Galveston TX, is as a good a candidate as any


Though the verses don't have much connection with the other variants, it's the last two lines in the refrain that give this particular version of the Buck's Elegy' its unique quality, and so put Galveston in the frame as the original locale of "St James' Infirmary Blues."

Who knows? Half the fun lies in the (strong!) possibility that there'll never be a definitive answer.
Click to expand...

IamNoMan said:
It is my opinion the The St James Infirmary is an American Song that comes from the "Unfortunate Rake" tradition. Yellow Fever Was a huge problem along the Southern Mississippi Valley prior to the Spanish American War when Walter Reed and his colleagues learned how to contain it. In 1873 20,000 died of the epidemic. In 1878 in Memphis 5,000 died. Kate Bionda, a restaurant owner was the first to die. The cities of St Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and Galveston for that matter all have Roman Catholic Parishes Named St James. Presumably they all had infirmarys. The RC infirmary I was born in in Teaneck New Jersey burned when I was young. The records with it. I have no birth certificate because of this. I have no documentation for the Van Ronk Discussion except to say he started it at the Cherry Tree Club, Uof P campus, Philadelphia one Sunday night in the 1980's. I was there. As you say it is all part of the fun.
Click to expand...

I've been scrubbing around for a discussion I remember from another forum and I've found it. It was on Mudcat Cafe, a folkies forum:

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=46310

It's well worth looking through. There are digressions at times but that's how these things go, but you can ferret out a fair bit. Overall the travels of the Unfortunate Rake set of songs is vague as much of the time it would have been transmitted orally but variants have turned up in several places in the English Speaking world. This much seems to be known.

The earliest known version comes from a Broadside called "The Buck's Elegy" published in London about 1790. There's no reference to any Hospital, let alone a St. James's. The first line is "As I walked down Covent Garden". It then goes on to include the standard elements of the Unfortunate Rake. The comrade wrapped up in Flannel and having been "disordered" by a woman. A reference to mercury compounds (an early treatment for syphilis) and the arranging of the funeral based on a funeral with full military honours. The song was subsequently Published many times by the broadside presses. References to St James Hospital or "The Lock Hospital" appear early on but in later ones get dropped as does the reference to mercury salts with the dying persons affliction becoming more vague. The request for an elaborate funeral remains a constant though. It crossed the pond and versions have been collected in the West Indies and various parts of N. America. A famous one, is the Dying Cowboy's Lament aka The Streets of Laredo where the young man is dying from a gunshot wound.

Somewhere along the line the song must have been picked up by the African Americans and was transformed into St. James Infirmary. No one knows for certain when but one aspect of the change is that the narrative became less coherent and the song has more of a stream of consciousness feel to it. The elaborate funeral arrangements remain, though. No one knows where the tune came from, though. It looks as if a bit of folk processing went on.

OTOH, The tune for the Streets of Laredo seems to have been attached to the Unfortunate Rake songs from an early stage, though again there is speculation where it originated. The common practice with Broadsides was to specify that the song was to be sung to an existing tune but the tune itself was never written down and it would just have been a popular tune of the day.

The Mudcat thread refers to a Smithsonian/Folkways album of "Unfortunate Rake" songs which I have been meaning to chase up for some time now. Maybe one day, I'll get round to it.
 
LimousinLil said:
POLITE NOTICE

Attention: If anyone else posts "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" early for St. Patrick's day i shall be extremely annoyed (Linda L. please note!) St. Patrick's day happens to also be my birthday, so i have first dibs!!!!
Click to expand...

UkuleleLibrarian said:
I didn't know we can call dibs! Is this a thing? I'm always really worried someone is going to steal a song while we're working on one.
Click to expand...

lelouden said:
A special broadcast and forecast ALERT!

A storm has started to brew in France and is headed to America where two storms may collide and a wrath with ensue. It seems as if nature is aware of this and in the event that all our computers blow up when this happens let it be known that the wrath in France was very well aware that the wrath in America started first. It appears that the wrath in France is planning to arrive on its target first but alas the wrath in America has already landed. What we are hoping is that the wrath in America is able to get out of the path of the wrath of France and there is no destruction.
However, we ask that you be prepared for the worst and prepare now. Get your supplies in order and find shelter ASAP!

As a side note~ This wrath may cause several mini wraths to appear. It is to be expected and allowed!
Click to expand...

I would just like to point out that When Irish Eyes are Smiling was first published in 1912 so its copyright has long expired, so this resident of one of the more Northerly parts of England feels free to play this song on his chromatic gob iron thingy and attempt to accompany it on a ukulele thingy because it just happens to be a tune of the month for the Harmonica Club Forum. Furthermore, he feels free to post on this here forum thingy 'cos it will be like killing two birds with one stone (not that he is in the habit of lobbing rocks at birds, you understand)

That is, of course, if he ever manages get to a round tuit as they are in short supply just now.
 
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I nearly forgot the real reason I logged into the seasons just now.

I interrupt this season briefly to announce that the wrap up for season 264 has been posted. Everyone was a winner, there were some great songs.

Normal service for S265 is now resumed.
 
Gary Country Solute to season 265 Heart and Soul is one of my favorites, however I don't sing and play it often, this video took a lot of takes, still not too happy but here it is.
 
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