Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 12/21/2023:  23:30:59

The earliest recording I can find is the Peggy Seeger version where it has the slightly different title of The Wedding Dress Song.
peggyseeger.bandcamp.com/album...-politics

Let me know if you find or know of any earlier?

Lyrics can be found here: traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-so...Dress.htm

I'm lucky enough to have tickets to hear Sam Amidon in Glasgow in January 2024. His version here is pretty close to the Peggy Seeger I think.
youtu.be/LkKMpRODK60?si=AdMEVTn6XT7daUqb


Nora Brown's is perhaps my favourite version, and I loosely based my version on hers - link is here:
norabrown.bandcamp.com/album/s...ngine?t=5


I could find almost no history to this song. The only little snippet being this from 'Stewie' on the Mudcat forum.
"Jody Stecher had the song from Holly Tannen who had learned it from Peggy Seeger. After hearing Stecher sing it, a woman at one of his gigs in Scotland expounded to him on the 'political symbolism' of the colours. Accordingly, Stecher later asked Seeger: 'So wots da deal wid da colours?' 'Oh, she said with a big smile, I only had one verse or two so I picked some more colours and made up something to rhyme'. As Stecher says, 'Bing! The sound of truth'."
I wondered about those colours and symbolism!
Here is the Jody Stecher version. No banjo in this that I can hear, but it's a really clear version.
youtu.be/JTF-5FvK_us?si=TExA2mJc41HDHYrL

The A's version of "Wedding Dress" is in the link below. There is no banjo, but it's hauntingly beautiful.

youtu.be/cn1XmbaCaaA?si=a3i5so7SE6497sSk

Here is a video I did explaining how I make the tune work youtu.be/susrbWpkphM

Merry Christmas!

VIDEO: The Wedding Dress Song. Clawhammer Banjo.
(click to view)

 

gentrixuk - Posted - 12/26/2023:  14:10:47

Merry Christmas Andy!



The version of this I'm most familiar with is by Pentangle, with Bert Jansch on Banjo.

youtu.be/31KgtDly4lM?si=JZJlzykFJ0OQIXT-

Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 12/27/2023:  04:25:53

quote:

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Originally posted by gentrixuk

Merry Christmas Andy!



The version of this I'm most familiar with is by Pentangle, with Bert Jansch on Banjo.

youtu.be/31KgtDly4lM?si=JZJlzykFJ0OQIXT-

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Thanks Mark, that's a nice version too. And you don't often hear a zither banjo played anywhere, but it really works on this.

Merry Christmas!

JanetB - Posted - 12/27/2023:  13:03:35

You often have choices that move through my musical memories, Andy.  Thanks for the research on it.  I'm surprised you didn't define the expression "doney gal" for us. There's also a county named Donegal.  Listening to the Pentangle version struck a chord.  When I got to college in the 70's and before I took up banjo, that was a group I listened to, and their version may have been how I learned it once upon a time.  Now I've arranged Wedding Dress for clawhammer, which took a bit of banjo exploration until I settled into a double C tuning.  It's so short a melody, without the lyrics there isn't much to it, so here's all of it.  Singing in a jam is different from recording into a Zoom H4n Pro in the Kids Room, but hopefully this helps give the song attention and your post brings some revival.

Wedding Dress (TOTW)

Wedding Dress (CH) tab