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Jul 1, 2016
This song pre-dates its alleged authors by a good 70 years. Obviously it is an old shanty, a sailing song. The "Rio Grande" mentioned in the song is not the river that is the border between the USA and Mexico, but the Rio Grande del Sul, in Brazil. A spinnaker is a triangular sail set at the very front of a sailing ship.
Jul 1, 2016
The three purported authors here, i.e. the Kingston Trio, Mk II, at most only wrote the words, or even just some of the verses to this song. Joe Clark evidently lived in eastern Kentucky or in what is now West Virginia in the mid-1800's, and was either a bar owner or some kind of political appointee to a very low position. The SONG has hundreds of verses, most rather silly and making fun of Joe, in the vein of the lyrics of Old Dan Tucker, which is a different song, but bears many similarities to Old Joe Clark. The song was very popular among troops in France in WWI. The State of Kentucky has erected a roadside plaque at the place where Old Joe Clark was supposed to have lived.
Jul 1, 2016
Bob Shane/Jack Splittard (both probably one and the same), had little to do with writing this song except perhaps to provide English words for it. The song comes out of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. Soccer fans of the Mexican World Cup team of 2002 most likely remember it as being used as the theme song for the team.
Jul 1, 2016
A dram glass is a very small glass, usually associated with whiskey. Dave Guard did not write this song, it has been around for ages, another in the banjo players' repetoire which every aspiring player should know and just about every recorded banjo player has released at one time or another.
Jul 1, 2016
Pat Clancy did not write this song, but even so, he and the Kingston Trio did a great service by popularizing it. Roddy McCorley was a leader of the Irish revolt in 1798 in the town of Tuam, in what is now called Northern Ireland. It did not take the British long to subdue this rebellion and make short work of McCorley, who was hung shortly afterwards on the bridge of the River Bann. Or so they thought! Some lady wrote this song about the young Patriot, and it has inspired tons of Irish patriots ever since.
Jul 1, 2016
Harlan Howard achieved more fame as a writer of science fiction stories and teleplays, but his piece here caught the attention of the Trio at the height of their career about 1959. They released it as a single and it did very well. Note the reference in the lyrics at one point to the "Everlys". This is a parody reference to the famous pop group, the Everley Brothers, whose contemporaneous hit, "Bird Dog", got shammed in the last verse of "Everglades." Good fun.
Jul 1, 2016
Lou Gottlieb, who had a Ph.D. in musicology and led the Limeliters and another famous folk group, may have arranged songs for the Kingston Trio, but he did not write this song at all. It appears to have originated in England in the late 1700's, according to Burl Ives' book on folk songs, where it appears in virtually the same form as it appears on the Trio's recording. This sort of stealing from the dead occurs all the time in folk music revival recordings, and even Woody Guthrie is guilty of it. "Trad., arr." is the real author of very many songs that appear on these records, but it is much easier to steal and take credit for things one has never done when the publishing royalty checks promise a payout. Shame.
Jul 1, 2016
I don't know who Bil Hansen was, but I do know that this spiritual has existed for a lot longer than any Bill Hansen, which is probably another Kingston Trio pseudonym. The Trio has taken a lot of flack from the folk song community on the internet for using strum patterns originating in Hawai'i (where two of the original Trio grew up) in performing this Negro spiritual, but that doesn't bother me at all, I think their version of it is just lovely.
Jul 1, 2016
The Trio seldom failed to appropriate credits for writing a song if they thought they could get away with it. This is actually "Darling Corey", a long-existing paean to a female moonshiner which has been part of the folk and old timey canon since Christ was a corporal. Jack Splittard is a pseudonym. Tons of versions exists.
Jul 1, 2016
This song does not belong to the authors mentioned. It refers to a horse race two horses, "Molly and Tenbrooks" in the 19th century in Kentucky, which also happens to be the original title. Bill Monroe did a well-known version. The Trio altered the lyrics so that the underdog, Molly, wins the race.
Jul 1, 2016
Yet another song hijacked by the Kingston Trio for publishing royalties. This is really one of our fine old shanties from the middle 1800's. "Santa Anna" was probably the name of the boat plying the seas between Liverpool and California, which came to be pronounced "Santy Anno" by the crew, to whom the song is addressed. Some writers postulate that a British boat crew fought in the Mexican War and was responsible for this song, but I doubt that. This was the song sung by the crew as the last sailing ship to commerically sail the Atlantic hove into port for the last time early in the 20th century, a fitting end to a significant era in music and commerce.
Jul 1, 2016
Here is yet another song which the Trio falsely claimed to have written in order to claim publishing royalties. Ledbelly caused the emergence of this Texas prison song in the 1940's, well before the Trio might have dreamed it up. The words might, in part, be theirs however, a usual ruse to claim the rights.
Sugarland Penitentiary in coastal Texas was located near a railroad. The story goes that the prisoners had a belief that if the light of the Midnight Special train shone upon a prisoner through the barred windows of the prison at night, his bail would arrive the next morning, and he would be freed.
Jul 1, 2016
Lee Hayes and Carl Sandburg had nothing to do with writing this song. One of them found it in the Bahamas where it was written early in the 1900's, by the crew member of a sponge boat which frequented Nassau Harbor. The boat was later wrecked, and the remains lie in the bottom of Nassau Harbor to this day. Blind (Alphonso) Blake (Higgs) came out with this before the Trio, in the early 1950's. Higgs should not be confused with the Blind Blake of the 1920's and 1930's blues scene: Higgs stole the name to improve sales!
Jul 1, 2016
Poor Charley never existed, but George O'Brian ran for Mayor of Boston sometime in the late 1940's or early 1950's, and the song played a role in that election. The music is from an old bluegrass tune "The Wreck of the Old 97" about a train wreck in Virginia. The Trio issued it as a single; one of their most popular tunes.