Stephen Foster's nanny took him to church on Sunday. She was half black, so they had to go to the black church. Foster's brother said Stephen picked up this tune there. When Mavis Staples does it, it's pure gospel.

But the published version probably was played more like this (and maybe even looked like this):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emjp6bBhHSo&feature=related

But here's a version that makes it pure Irish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBl_eTCfTs&feature=related

This one is quite a bit spookier on the record, especially if you've just seen "Cold Mountain."

Ahhh yes, Irish music.....

Also Spooky

That's bloody brilliant!

Nothing tops the Original Red Clay Ramblers - Tommy Thompson, Jack Herrick, Jim Watson, Bill Hicks, Mike Craver - doing this or any other thing they wanted to turn their vocal chords and nimble fingers to. Besides, they were madmen who pissed off a lotta people by being as politically incorrect as they could get, which was pretty far out when they had a mind to. Oh well. I miss them a lot.

The Red Clay Ramblers! I loved those guys.

Remember "Lie of the Mind"? The Sam Shepard play that was staged with a balcony on which the Red Clay Ramblers played throughout the play?

Here's the deal: http://originalredclayramblers.com/calendars/lieofthemind.htm

Angelina Baker
-- Stephen Foster

I've seen my Angelina
In the spring time and the fall,
I've seen her in the corn field
And I've seen her at the ball;
And every time I met her
She was smiling like the sun,
But now I'm left to weep a tear
Cause Angelina's gone.

chorus:
Angelina Baker!
Angelina Baker's gone
She left me here to weep a tear
And play on the old jaw bone.

Angelina liked the boys
As far as she could see them,
She used to run old Massa 'round
To ask him for to free them.
Early in the morning
Of a lovely summer day
I asked for Angelina,
But they'd taken her away.

chorus:
Angelina Baker!
Angelina Baker's gone
She left me here to weep a tear
And play on the old jaw bone.

I think the Ramblers do Angelina Baker someplace too. Whatever they did - magic. (I just got word from Mike Craver - he's sent me his end of an "email interview" - I sent him the questions, here's his answers) to put up on The Digital Folk Life website. Just waiting for me webmistress to get it together, and it'll be up there. Like the rest of the Ramblers, he's such an articulate guy. Tommy Thompson was a philosophy TA at Chapel Hill when they got started - great interview, just ask him a sentence, you got a paragraph answer and stop there. Kept the thing flowing along real nicely. It was such a tragedy when he succumbed to early Altzheimers, horrible enough for anyone, but for a guy with that kind of mind to go that way - eeeh.

Geez, that one died the death, dint it?

Anyway, check the archives of The Digital Folk Life for the Mike Craver interview, as well as the much older Tommy Thompson one. We shall not soon see Tommy's like again.

This bunch might be even harder to categorize than the Texas playboys:

That's the new Red Clay Ramblers - only Jack Herrick, the trumpet player, remains from the Original Red Clay Ramblers. Bland Simpson is the fiddler, replaccing Bill Hicks, who's now playing and recording solo or with his wife. Mike Craver now has a solo career, as predicted by the late, lamented Tommy Thompson, founder of the ORCR, and Jim Watson is either playing solo or in Robin & Linda Williams' Fine Group. I don't care for any recordings by these guys as much as I do the ORCR, who were true whackjobs - said with due reverence, love & respect for whackjobs everywhere. These guys have even tamed Jack Herrick, who was I think close to Tommy as Wjackjob Supreme in the originals, oh well. Don't buy these guys if you can get the double CD Merchant's Lunch/ Mtn Laurel CD of the originals first, to hear what I mean, especially things like Woman Down in Memphis," or the title cut of "Merchants' Lunch," with "an acre of Brenda...exposed to view...." Worth the price alone. And then of course there's the ORCR' version og Stepgen Foster's "Hard Times," which is on a CD by that name and has never been matched. I'm biased by my love for them, of course; but taming Jack Herrick was close to sacrilege, IMFO, and YMMV, BOC.

One youtube commentator says: "Bravo Wainwright McGarrigle families et al"

Stephen Foster was murdered by a vengeful washbasin. Talk about your hard times.

I guess that's faintly funny, in some alien to this planet sense.