ndlxs - Posted - 12/23/2022:  05:44:05

There are two parts to this special holidy tune of the week: the words and the melody.  Let this be a lesson on taking old words and putting them to other melodies, which was done with this text repeatedly over the ages and I did myself not too long ago.



First of all, here is a video of me playing the result:

youtube.com/watch?v=M-lR0p2eFHU



As you can see, I have capo’ed the double C tuning up to E; I tune the fifth string up to B without a fifth string capo or spikes.



The Words: Isaac Watts’ Cradle Hymn

I’ll start with the words: they were written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the writer of over 750 hymns, including “Joy to the World”, “When I Can Read My Title Clear” and other familiar numbers.  This one was first published in 1706 in his book Moral Songs at the end of the section called Songs for Children; it has 14 verses.  However, he did not provide a melody, so it got lost and never really caught on until it two separate melodies in the 1970 publication of the Second Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, and thereupon it had new life. The first version was the melody of the shape note hymn Restoration, also known as “I Will Arise”; the same one done by Doc Watson.   The second melody was another shape note hymn, Sweet Affliction, also known as Greenville.



Here are the original words and music of Restoration, sung with zest in Ireland.

Here is the original words and music of Sweet Affliction.



It seems like Rev. Watts had no editor, though: the 1970 publication noted that “We include ten of the fourteen four-line stanzas, omitting verse 8 as both anti-Semitic and absurd, and 12 (with its ‘burning flame’ ‘bitter groans’, and ‘endless crying’) as less than suitable for a tiny infant. “



Here is a good discussion of these words.  Here is some more on the 1970 version.



If you must see the original words, here they are.



Here are some nice performances of these words:

Les Muses Chorale from Quebec (beautiful, but stiff and un-banjo-able)

Peter Amidon Ensemble from Vermont (beautiful and possible on banjo, but I like the original words of “I Will Arise”)

Paul Halley Ensemble



For my version, I selected 6 of these verses, and did my best to switch all of the “thy”s and “thee”s to something more fitting of the most recent 100 years.  If you’d like the words, message me and I will send them to you. Even with just 6 of the 14 verses, there are still a lot of words. I am reading them from an off camera music stand in my video. 



The Melody: Johnson Boys, David Lindley version



I liked the words a lot; I liked the “I Will Arise” melody plenty; but I also liked the original words of I Will Arise too, so I decided to use Johnson Boys as the melody.



My introduction to David Lindley’s version of The Johnson Boys was in college, before I ever had a banjo. The student store always had bins of low cost vinyl records; one of them I bought was a collection of banjo tunes all obviously recorded in the Great Folk Scare of the early 1960s.  There were many versions of this LP; some including the great Billy Faier’s Green Corn, which I don’t think has even been a TOTW.



They all included Johnson Boys, though.  Here is David Lindley playing it on banjo; here he is playing it on his bouzouki. Lindley’s entire recorded output on banjo is this recording and another called Bluegrass Mountain Melody (3 finger style).  It’s too bad; he won the famous Topanga Canyon Banjo Contest for 5 years in a row and was asked to retire as a contestant and be a judge.  Who knows whatever banjo tunes he played?  His friend Taj Mahal was another one who won this contest so many times he was invited to be a judge. Likewise, Taj Mahal only has a few banjo tunes in his recordings.



David Lindley lives near where I grew up in Claremont, California, the home of about 5 private colleges and where the Folk Music Center still endures.  When I was in late elementary and junior high school, my mom took pottery classes next door to the Folk Music Center at a shop called Raku. We went to several craft fairs sponsored by them in the late 1960s which featured music by Lindley and his band, Kaleidoscope.  This was way before I started playing guitar and banjo, though. The Folk Music Center is now owned by the grandson of the original owners (Dorothy and Charles Chase), the well known Ben Harper, whom I used to see as a young child running around when I would go there to hang out in the mid to late 1970s.  



Here is David Lindley being interviewed at the Folk Music Center by David Holt.



Here is a tab of Lindley’s Johnson Boys from the hangout’s David Brooks.





 

Edited by - ndlxs on 12/23/2022 06:58:05

carlb - Posted - 12/23/2022:  11:32:32

Johnson Boys (Don't remember why I uploaded this back in March, 2022), but it's the version that's referenced.

Partial performance from an interview of the Juggernaut String Band on Gene Shay's show (WIOQ) in 1978 in Philadelphia, PA. Peter Taney (banjo, lead vocal), Janet Bregman-Taney (fiddle, harmony vocal) and Carl Baron (guitar, harmony vocal).

 

Johnson Boys

 

JanetB - Posted - 12/29/2022:  11:16:12

That was a moving performance, Andy, and showcases your gift for arranging songs most creatively.  It's astounding that Johnson Boys let you produce something so appropriate for Christmas.  I used your vocals to arrange an instrumental.

Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest & Folk Festival left a big imprint on me as a youngster learning guitar.  Thanks for the history you provide from my neck of the woods.

Isaac Watts' Cradle Hymn/Johnson Boys (TOTW)

Johnson Boys/Isaac Watts' Cradle Hymn (CH) tab