Pete Seeger - Darling Corey (1950)

Folksinger and banjoist Peter Seeger has made other recordings, including as a member of the Almanac Singers in 1941-1942, but "Darling Corey" is his first solo album. He devotes it to traditional folk songs, some of which were introduced to him by folklorist Alan Lomax, who employed him at the Archive of American Folk Song, part of the Library of Congress, in 1939-1940, and who penned the annotations for this collection.

There are songs about long-lost loves who come back to their beloveds ("John Riley") and about "no good" wives who get their heads cut off by their husbands ("I Had a Wife"). The title song is about a moonshiner and his woman, and "East Virginia Blues," which begins, "I was born and raised in East Virginia," is a romantic lament. Lomax acknowledges in his notes that Seeger himself was born in New York City, the son of a musicologist and a "longhair" violinist, and attended Harvard. It is not surprising that he makes no attempt to affect the kind of rural accent that might be expected in these songs. Instead, he picks his banjo steadily and renders the songs in a clear, direct manner, as if in the aural version of a musicologist's transcription. In so doing, he preserves some valuable musical folklore.                


Tracklist                           

A1	John Riley
A2	Risselty-Rosselty
A3	Devilish Mary
A4	Come All Fair Maids
A5	East Virginia Blues
A6	I Had A Wife
B1	Skillet Good And Greasy
B2	Darling Corey
B3	Banjo Pieces
B4	Jam On Jerry's Rocks
B5	Penny's Farm
B6	Danville Girl
B7	Get Along Little Dogies

Pete Seeger - Darling Corey (1950)
(256 kbps, front cover inlcuded)