"Far As My Eyes Can See"
CD on Fellside Recordings FECD195
August 2005
Reviews
- listen
2. False Young Man
- listen
3. I Don't Want A Woman To Stay out All Night Long
- listen
4. Pat Do This
5. I Worry For This World
- listen
6. Quil O Quay
7. Harrison Brady
8. The Farmer's Daughter
9. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues
10. Run Sister Run
11. One Day
12. The Cuckoo
13. The L&N Don't Stop Here Any More
14. Drunkard's Lone Child
- listen
15. Swannanoa Mountain
Ben Paley
Acknowledgements
Credits
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara – vocal & banjo
Ben – fiddle
Linda - vocal
This was written by Jean Ritchie. Jean was born in 1922 in Viper, Kentucky, the youngest of the 14 children. Her family were poor farmers, but what they lacked in money they more than made up for in music. Their Scot-Irish heritage was rich in songs sung by generations of mountain people, tucked away from the world in the remote hollows and valleys of Appalachia.
From an early age Jean wrote poetry of a remarkable caliber and many of her poems she set to the traditional music with which she was so familiar.
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2. False Young Man (Trad.)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara – vocal
This is also known as “I Went Out One May Morning”. This version appears in Sharpe from the singing of Jeff Stockton of Flagpond, Tennessee. It is also known as House Carpenter, True Lover's Farewell, Set You Down My Own True Love. The false young man sings the first verse and the rest of the song is the rejected lover’s plaintif response. The first verse is very similar to that of Young Hunting from which this ballad is probably derived. I learned this from Shirley Collins.
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3. I Don’t Want A Woman To Stay Out All Night Long (Skip James)
Kieron – vocal & guitar
Skip says on a live recoding of a 1966 concert in Philadelphia that down in Mississippi that you can see someone coming from miles away but due to the dust they kick up you can’t tell who it might be.
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4. Pat Do This (Trad.)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara –vocal & banjo
Ben – fiddle
This is a version of “Paddy on The Railroad”. It is an Irish emigration song collected in Virginia in the 1950s by John A. and Alan Lomax. According to Sandburg, this was first published in the 1850s. It is also known as Paddy Works on the Railway, but there are endless varieties of lyrics. I learned this from the singing of Dana and Susan Robinson and Jeff Davis.
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5. I Worry For This World (Kieron Means)
Kieron – vocal &guitar
Ben - fiddle
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6. Quil O’Quay (Trad.)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara – vocal & banjo
From the singing of Nimrod Workman. Born in 1895 in Martin County, Kentucky, the music of Nimrod Workman tells the history of the southern mountains in this century as he sings everything from traditional ballads to contemporary songs he's written about current events.
The ballad is Child #18 and is related to Sir Lionel and is even thought to be related to King Arthur's boar fight (before Lancelot et al got tacked onto Arthur's legend, he did
things like hunt killer boars and kings)
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7. Harrison Brady (Trad. & Dave Arthur)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara –vocal & banjo
Ben – fiddle
This is a robust version of The Gypsy Laddie (Child #200) which was sung by Lily Bell Dietrick at Morgantown WVa, 1944, and collected by Samuel Bayard. I learned it from Dave Arthur, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who had reworked the text and tune. Dave uses Lilly Bell’s fourth verse as a chorus. Dave used the tune “Winder Side” from the tune playing of an Ohio musician, Joe LaRose, and fiddler, Rayne Gilbert. Winder is in Georgia.
The ballad dates from the 18th c.Scotland…seducer is the Gypsy, Johnny Faa, Child suggests that the hanging of Johnny Faa and his Gypsy Band happened as a result of being expelled from Scotland by James V. The castle in the town of Maybole in Ayr, Scotland was the place of confinement for life of the Countess of Cassilis, a daughter of the first earl of Haddington, who eloped with Johnny Faa.
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8. The Farmer’s Daughter (Trad.)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara – vocal
This version was sung by Harrison Burnett Fayetteville, AR. This is also known as I'll Get Married A-Sunday, Sixteen (or, Seventeen) Come Sunday, The Trooper and the Maid.
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9. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues (Barbecue Bob)
Kieron – vocal & guitar
The Mississippi Delta is famous for more than floods; it's the birthplace of uniquely American music. As the flood waters rose, many blues artists were inspired to write songs about the disaster and describe the experience of being in a flood. This song is from the singing of Roscoe Holcomb and was written by Atlanta artist Barbecue Bob, it describes losing his woman, who's washed away in the 1927 flood. (top of page)
10. Run Sister Run (Herrick & Thompson)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara –vocal & banjo
Ben – fiddle
Written by Jack Herrick and Tommy Thompson of The Red Clay Ramblers who sang it in the Sam Shepheard play “A Lie Of The Mind” on Broadway.
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11. One Day (Kieron Means)
Kieron –vocal & guitar
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12. The Cuckoo (Trad.)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara –banjo
Ben – fiddle
From the singing of Clarence Ashley. It tells no story, but it presents a set of impressions, a philosophical statement. It has strange lyrics about a habitual gambler and in the song the cuckoo is used as a symbol of summer and of easy living. Cowboys knew the song as “Jack Of Diamonds”, Woody Guthrie used to sing it as “Rye Whisky”. (top of page)
13. The L&N Don’t Stop Here Any More (Jean Ritchie)
Kieron – vocal & guitar
This was written by Jean Ritchie. (See the notes for “One More Mile” for information about Jean.
The Louisville & Nashville Railroad was born March 5, 1850. Between 1879 and 1881, through the purchase of track in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Illinois, the L&N gained access to the coal fields of western Kentucky. One of the L&N's most important expansions came early in the 1900s, when the railroad pushed its tracks deep into the coal fields surrounding Hazard and Harlan in eastern Kentucky. One of the coal mine served was the Hazard Hollow at Hazard, Kentucky near Viper where Jean grew up. This song marks the closing of the Hazard Hollow mine and the fact that the trains not longer stopped there to haul away coal. The L& N is still operating.
Cudsu vines, mentioned in the third verse, were imported from Japan as a ground cover for spoilbanks from new highways and strip mines.
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14. Drunkard’s Lone Child (Trad.)
Kieron – vocal & guitar
Ben – fiddle
This mountain music classic comes from the singing of Dock Boggs.
It was also Collected from Mrs. L.A. Thomas, MO, in 1928, which is the version in Ozark Folksongs, by Vance Randolph.
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15. Swannanoa Mountain (Trad.)
Kieron – lead vocal & guitar
Sara –vocal & banjo
Ben - fiddle
From the singing of Roscoe Holcomb. Coal-miner and farmer, Roscoe Holcomb, 1911-1981, was ‘discovered’ by folklorist John Cohen in 1959. Twelve of the recordings made at the session were released as “Mountain Music of Kentucky” on the Smithsonian Folkways label. Sick with asthma and emphysema, he passed away in 1981 at age 70. Bob Dylan once described Roscoe as "having an untamed sense of control"
The Swannanoa Mountain range, overlooks the Swannanoa Valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.
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Ben Paley
[Another transatlantic baby] Ben’s exposure to traditional music began in the womb, from his father, Tom Paley, his mother, Claudia, and continued later from his step-father, Ron Gould. Having grown up with old-time American music, Ben became interested in the Swedish tradition in 1980, and later in Irish fiddling in 1989, which influences may be heard by the careful listener in his playing. Ben has worked with Tab Hunter, Maggie Boyle, Duck Baker, Damon Albarn, The Levellers, Michael Nyman and McDermott’s 2 Hours to name but a few.
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Acknowledgements
I’m very grateful to Paul, Linda and Richard Adams for their vision, patience and humour during this recording.
Thank you to Dave MacLurg, my Dad, Andrew, friends and to Heather for advice and companionship.
Soon after meeting Ben Paley to rehearse for the CD I knew we were going to be good friends. Thanks for giving so much to this record.
Thank-you to my Mum, singing partner and my friend, Sara. It makes me very happy to make this music with her.
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Credits
Kieron Means, vocals and guitar
Sara Grey, vocals and banjo
Ben Paley, fiddle
Linda Adams, vocals
Produced by PaulAdams
Recorded by Paul Adams, Richard Adams and Robert Hallard
Art work by Mary Blood
Cover Photograph by James Walker Photography
Photograph of Kieron by Eve Matthews
Inside Photographs: Kieron & Sara by James Walker, Ben by Paul Adams
Sleeve Notes Dave MacLurg