This American folk song, known under many different names including "The Gambler", "Roaming Gambler", "Gambling Man", and "Roving Soldier", probably originated with an English broadside known as such as "The Journeyman" or "The Roving Journeyman", which appears in English broadsides from the 19th Century (Roud #360 in the Bodleian Library).
The one below is dated between 1818 and 1838:
American antecedents are easier to trace. "The Gamboling Man" appears in "Delaney's Song Book No. 23" around 1900 and was republished, with repeated lines eliminated, by Carl Sandburg in his "American Song Bag" (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927). Sandburg assumes it was disseminated by the minstrel shows through the south and west, and stresses that the gambling motif is an American introduction: "while gamblers may gambol and gambolers may gamble, the English version carries no deck of cards."
"The Roving Gambler" was also included in John A. and Alan Lomax's "American Ballads and Folk Songs" (New York: Macmillan, 1935)
John Lomax acquired this song from one of his star informants, Slim Critchlow, who sang with the Utah Buckaroos, a cowboy band, on Salt Lake City radio stations KDYL and KSL. Critchlow's version is similar to those collected in many other parts of the United States and closely resembles a variant called the "Guerilla Man".
In 1917 Cecil Sharp had collected a version in Pineville, Kentucky from Mrs Townsley and Mrs Wilson
The song is also included in Henry Marvin Belden's "Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society" (1940).
A ROVING SOLDIER
I am a roving soldier,
I rove from town to town,
And when I see a table
So willingly I sit down.
I eat when I'm hungry,
I drink when I get dry,
And if the Rebels don't kill me
I'll live until I die.
'Oh, daughter! oh, daughter!
What makes you treat me so?
To leave your native country
With a roving soldier boy?'
'Oh, mother, oh, mother!
You know I love you well,
But the love that I have for that Union man
No mortal tongue can tell.
'His pockets lined with greenbacks,
His musket in his hand,
------
The men at his command.
'And when they hear him coming
They'll wring their hands with joy,
And one will say to the other,
"'There comes the soldier boy.'"
Collected 1912- "learned it about ten years before from an old man..."
H. M. Belden, Ballads and Songs, collected by the Missouri Folklore Society, 1940(1973), "The Guerrilla Boy," B, with music.
THE GUERRILLA BOY
I am a roving guerrilla,
I rove from town to town,
And whenever I spy a pretty little girl
So willingly I get down
So willingly I get down.
I rode on my journey
Till I came to Bloomfield* town,
And there I spied a pretty little girl
And willingly I got down (2x).
I had not been in Bloomfield
More days than two or three
Till I fell in love with a pretty little girl
And she fell in love with me (2x).
She asked me in her parlor,
She cooled me with her fan;
She whispered in her mother's ear,
'I love the guerrilla man.'
'Oh, daughter, dearest daughter,
How can you serve me so,
To leave your kind old mother
And with the guerrilla go?'
'Oh, mother, dearest mother,
I know I love you well;
But the love I have for the guerrilla man
No human tongue can tell.
'I'll bundle up my clothing
With my true love by my side,
And I'll rove this wide world over
And be a guerrilla's bride.
'And when I see him coming
I'll clap my hands for joy
And say to my old mother,
"'There come's my guerrilla boy!"
'With his pockets lined with silver,
A **navy in each hand,
A long and full success
To the roving guerrilla man!'
And now this war is over,
I'll lay my **navy down.
To be a roving guerrilla
I wear the starry crown.***
*Bloomfield is in southeast Missouri. **Navy- the navy revolver, favored as a sidearm in the Civil War era. ***starry crown- meaning?
The song derives from "The Roving Journeyman," which appears in English broadsides. Belden says "probably of Irish origin." Also see "The Gambling Man."
H. M. Belden, "Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society," 1940, 1973, p. 374, The Guerrilla Boy A.
A Civil War song.
It is # 498 in the Roud Folk Music Index.
AND HERE ARE THE RECORDINGS:
Although instrumental, Samantha Bumgarner's "Gamblin' Man" has the musical framework for all the later "Rovin' Gambler"/"Gamblin' Man" versions
(o) Samantha Bumgarner (1924) (as "Gamblin' Man")
Recorded April 23, 1924 in New York
Released on Columbia 191-D
Listen here:
(c) Kelly Harrell (1925) (as "Rovin' Gambler")
Recorded January 7, 1925 in New York
Released on Victor 19596
Listen here:
Or here:
More than 1 year later Harrell recorded another version for the Victor label
That version was recorded on June 8, 1926 on Victor 20171.
Listen here:
(c) Land Norris (1925) (as "Gambling Man")
Recorded April 1925 in Atlanta, GA.
Released on Okeh 40404
Listen here:
(c) Al Craver (=Vernon Dalhart) (1925) (as "The Rovin' Gambler")
Recorded June 6, 1925 in New York
Released on Columbia 15034-D
Listen here:
Or here: The Rovin' Gambler - Al Craver.mp3
(c) Welby Toomey (1926) (as "Roving Gambler")
Recorded October 1926 in Richmond, IN
Released on Gennett 6005
Listen here:
(c) Gid Tanner and his Skillet-Lickers (1929) (as "Roving Gambler")
Recorded 8 April 8, 1929 in Atlanta, GA.
Released on Columbia 15447-D
Listen here
In 1944 Woody Guthrie adapted the song a bit and made a recording for Moses Asch
(c) Woody Guthrie (as "Gambling Man")
Recorded April 19, 1944
Matrix MA 51
Mastered from Smithsonian Acetate 086 10" shellac disc, in 1997 it was finally released on "Muleskinner Blues The Asch Recordings. vol.2"
Listen here:
(c) Terry Gilkyson (1950) (as "Rovin' Gambler")
Listen here:
In 1957 Lonne Donegan copied the Woody Guthrie-adaptation.
It reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in June and July 1957, where it spent two weeks in this position.
(c) Lonnie Donegan (1957) (as "Gambling Man")
Recorded on May 9, 1957 live at the London Palladium
Released as a double A side along with "Puttin' On the Style".
Listen here:
(c) New Lost City Ramblers (1958) (as "Roving Gambler")
Listen here:
Or here:
(c) Everly Brothers (1958) (as "Roving Gambler")
Listen here:
(c) The Easy Riders (1959) (as "Rovin' Gambler")
Listen here:
(c) The Brothers Four (1960) (as "I Am a Roving Gambler")
Listen here:
(c) Slim Dusty (1961) (as "Rovin' Gambler")
Listen here:
(c) Frankie Laine (1961) (as "The Roving Gambler")
Recorded July 5, 1961 in Hollywood.
Listen here:
(c) Jim Reeves (1964) (as "Roving Gambler")
Recorded March/April 1963 Johannesburg, RSA
Jim also sang it in the movie "Kimberley Jim".
(c) Hedy West (1965) (as "Gambling Man")
Listen here:
(c) Simon & Garfunkel (1970) (as "Roving Gambler")
Recorded in 1970 as a demo, finally released in 2001
Listen here:
(c) Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie (1975) (as "Roving Gambler")
Listen here:
(c) Bob Dylan (1998) (as "Roving Gambler")
Recorded live on December 17, 1997 in El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles
Released on maxi-CD "Love Sick"
But Bob had already taped the song in May 1960 in the apartment of Karen Wallace in St. Paul, Minnesota
Here's a live version from April 1997.
(c) John Cohen & The Down Hill Strugglers (2013) ( as "The Roving Gambler")
Listen here:
(c) Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones (2013) (as "Roving Gambler")
Listen here:
Songs with the same melody:
(c) Carter Family (1937) (as "The Little Black Train")
Recorded May 7, 1935 in New York
Released on Melotone 7-07-62 / Romeo 7-07-62 and Perfect 7-07-62
Listen here:
(c) Harkreader and Moore (1927) (as "The Gambler's Dying Words")
Recorded ca. May, 1927 at Marsh Laboratories in Chicago, IL.
Harkreader And Moore - Way Down In Jail On My Knees / The Gambler's Dying Words (Shellac) at Discogs
Listen here:
(c) Asa Martin (1931) (as "The Rovin' Moonshiner")
Recorded March 6, 1931 in New York
Released on Perfect 12763 / Banner 32307 / Oriole 8102 and Conqueror 7844
Listen here:
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten