A reader let me know that, in posting the 1929 orchestral score for St. James Infirmary, I had neglected to include the part for second trumpet.
This score, probably the first published orchestration, included parts for piano, alto sax, bass, trumpet, drums, violin. trombone, banjo. You can find the other sheets scattered through this blog (search "sheet music").
Selling for 50 cents, the score was arranged by famed banjoist Fred Van Eps, and published by Gotham Music Service, an arm of Mills Music, Inc. Mills Music was co-owned by Jack and Irving Mills. Irving Mills was Joe Primrose, who didn't write the song.
But, hey, the dj - a dentist by the name of Michael J. Mand - talks over Toussaint's piano at the beginning of the broadcasts, in fact chats with his audience (in an informal, meandering - appealing - way) before moving into the subsequent playlist, which really is a fascinating cornucopia of popular music past and present. Check out the site, listen for a while; I am sure you will discover something you like.
And it is a very fine program. Michael carefully crafts each weekly show around a theme, and is not afraid to air three successive versions of the same song if it fits the momentum. He can easily move from the 1920s to contemporary recordings, although his favourite timeline seems to be the late '50s to the present day. If you are among those who miss Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, tuning in here might be the salve you have been looking for.
This month Michael interviewed me about the theme song for his program, St. James Infirmary. If you look for the December 2, 2016 show here you can catch the action, and get a taste of an internet radio show/podcast worth following. (The interview itself starts at about 32 minutes in.)
Some of the characters who appear in I Went Down to St. James Infirmary.
(Painting and collage by the author,
with apologies to Albert Gleizes.)
We're excited about this book. But many people who read this blog might not know how I Went Down to St. James Infirmary approaches its subject. It occurred to me that a good way to address this would be to post the Introduction to this new, revised edition.
Image of Ye Olde Rose & Crown Theatre Pub copied from Google Maps
Ye Olde Rose & Crown, one of London's finest olde pubs, stands at 53 Hoe Street. The Walthamstow Folk Club operates out of the pub's back room/theatre on Sunday evenings. On one of those evenings the London roots musician Simon Prager (who finds inspiration in the music of the Rev. Gary Davis) took the stage. A song from that night was - you guessed it - a stirring rendition of "St. James Infirmary."
(You might have to double-click on the image to view in its intended perspective.)
Woody Guthrie's song, "This Land is Your Land,"
has been making the news lately. A class action lawsuit is hoping to bring the
song into the public domain.
Guthrie published the song in 1945 (although he wrote it five years earlier). At that time copyright extended for 28 years beyond the date of publication,
after which it could be re-registered for a further 28 years. Guthrie did
not renew the copyright, and so it should have entered the public domain in
1973. A publishing company, though, registered the song as a new creation in 1956 (eleven years after Guthrie published the song) and renewed it in 1984 -
by which time the length of copyright had been extended considerably. Clearly (as with
Irving Mills and "St. James Infirmary"), they had no right to ownership of the
song.
Guthrie based his melody on earlier songs.
An old turn of the 20th century Baptist hymn called
"Oh My Loving Brother":
Which The Carter Family used for their song "Little
Darling Pal of Mine," recorded in 1928:
And again for "When the World's on Fire," recorded in 1930:
In this context it is interesting that - as I
discuss in "I Went Down to St. James Infirmary" - song publisher
Ralph Peer asked the Carters to modify the traditional songs they heard in
their native Appalachia in such a way as to allow the songs to move from the
public domain into copyrightable material. Peer then assumed the copyright for his publishing
company, and kept the Carters loyal to him by assigning them a portion of the royalties (which was a
better deal than most publishers were offering at the time). Some writers,
such as Barry Mazor in his important (if hagiographic) 2015 biography
"Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music," (Chicago Review
Press - with a co-copyright credit to Peer's publishing company Southern Music) assert that this is just good business. The reasoning goes that it is the business of song
publishing, and the profits that flow from it, that allow these songs to
survive and enter public consciousness. In this way capitalism is good for our
commonality and for cultural well-being. More idealistic assertions
suggest that song ownership should always reside with the writer, that simply
because you have more money does not give you the right to profit excessively from somebody
else's work; publishing revenue should be enough. Simply because there is a common practice does not make it a right practice.
The final edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary was printed in November, 2015, six months ago. A month later Pam and I moved from our acre of land in the village of Val Marie, Saskatchewan, to a three-storey walk-up in the metropolis of Victoria on Vancouver Island.
Once before - at the New Year of 2013 - I ventured away from the principal theme of this blog to post a song by Look out Mama, the trio I belonged to in Val Marie. We held a very occasional gig at the Val Marie Hotel, attended by tens of people (actually, not a bad audience in a village of a hundred souls).
So, in celebration of the second and final edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, and of (approximately) the eighth anniversary of this blog, I am posting another Look Out Mama performance. James Page on lead guitar, Colleen Watson on rhythm guitar, myself on percussion and lead vocal.
As with the song "Look Out Mama" (not to be confused with the name of our trio, Look Out Mama), I wrote this ditty. The lyric is based upon the initial meetings between the philosophers G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky in 1914 Moscow. In earlier years Ouspensky (Dan) had experimented with drugs like ether (in the lyric, Esther) and hashish (Mary Jane) - but soon abandoned them. Lots of poetic license here, and apologies to the real world for that.
This was our first performance of the song (it became more nuanced in later versions). Many thanks to Pam Woodland for the video, recorded live at the Val Marie Hotel in 2013. (Double-click on the video the get the full image.)
Dan & Van
Dan had been traveling with Esther and Mary Jane
But one day they left him standing out in the rain
Bells were sounding across the river
Through the mists he could see
That all of this time they'd been moving through the same country
Where do you want to go, where are you going to stay
You know it's all the same
Place you are in, place with a different name
Van once trained tigers in Turkestan
Herded horses in Montana and Saskatchewan
He'd worked on the trains, drove camels across the plains
Picked grapes from the vines
Dug for coal and gold down in the mines
Where do you want to go, where are you going to stay
You know it's all the same
Place you are in, place with a different name
Dan met Van in an ice palace in Rome
Dan said to Van I've been searching for my home
Van told Dan, better sit down here
You've no place left to go
Keep your eyes open for the next hundred years or so
Try to your eyes open for the next hundred years or so
Try to keep your eyes open, you've nowhere left to go
