Silver Dagger: Song notes, Close-ups

Hi,

The Silver Dagger is one of the oldest ballads found in the Appalachian Mountains.

Here are two close-ups of my painting. (See full painting in last blog). First is a close-up of the lyrics. Second is a close-up of Willie after he knocks at her window while above an angel tries to warn them of the upcoming tragedy.







Perhaps the earliest text appears as Drowsy Sleeper- in the Bodelian Library in 1817 and in The Social Harp 1855 (first verse only); Earliest complete version in the US is “Awake Awake!” sung by Mary Sands at Allanstand, NC Aug 1, 1916.

The song and its close variants have many names: "The Drowsy Sleeper " [Laws M4]; “Oh Molly Dear (Go Ask Your Mother)” “Silver Dagger;” “I Will Put My Ship in Order” “Awake, Awake” “Who's That Knocking?;” “Peggy Dear;” “Kentucky Mountain;” “Julianne;” “Willie Darling;” “Little Willie;” "Bessie and Charlie."

It's related to: “Greenback Dollar,” “Old Virginny/East Virginia Blues/Dark Holler Blues,” “Darling Think of What You've Done;” "Greenback Dollar" (plot); "Go From My Window;" "One Night As I Lay on My Bed."

The chronology of the “Drowsy Sleeper” Songs can be seen below. Traced from a broadside from Chrome, Sheffield, 1817 entitled the “Drowsy Fleeper” in the Bodelian Library, England, to “Katie Dear” in the 1930’s in the US.

1) “The Drowsy Sleeper " [Laws M4];” 1817 Bodelian Library- England
2) “Arise! Arise!” Late 1800’s early 1900’s England
3) “Awake! Awake! (Sharp No. 57 see: Version 4)” US versions- 1916
4) “Silver Dagger” 1918 Sharp- US version
5) “Oh Molly Dear (Go Ask Your Mother)” 1926 Kelly Harrell
6) “Katie Dear” 1934 Callahan Brothers

The first recording, under the title 'Katie Dear', was by the Callahan Brothers in 1934. Joe and Bill, from North Carolina, were born in 1910 and 1912 respectively. Bill Malone ['Country Music USA' p110] and the unidentified writer of the notes to 'Callahan Brothers' CD [Old Homestead 4031] indicate that there was plenty of singing around the Callahan household and that they learned the folk component of their repertoire [before being swept away with Jimmy Rodgers music in the late 20s], songs like 'Katie Dear' and 'Banks of the Ohio, from their mother. This would probably bring the date back to the late 19th century at least.

The name “Katie Dear” and “Oh Mollie Dear” are interchangeable: The gal came back to life and changed her name often- May, Molly, Nancy, Mary, Madam and nameless in “Drowsy Sleeper” variants in Randolph; Julia (Julie) and nameless in Silver Dagger; Mary in Cox' Silver Dagger. A number of bluegrass singers used the Katy Dear/Oh Mollie Dear variant. These are the earliest recordings:

1) Oh Molly Dear (BVE 35667-3)- Kelly Harrell- 6-09-1926
2) Oh Molly Dear (BVE 39725-2 B. F. Shelton- 7-27-1927
3) Sleepy Desert (Paramount 3282, 1931; on TimesAint03)- Wilmer Watts & the Lonely Eagles- 1929
4) Wake Up You Drowsy Sleeper (BE 62575-2)- Oaks Family- 6-04- 1930
5) Katie Dear (14524-2) - Callahan Brothers (vcl duet w.gtrs) - 01/03/1934. NYC.
6) Katie Dear (BS 018680-1) - Blue Sky Boys (vcl duet w/mdln & gtr) - 01/25/1938. Charlotte, N.C. (Bill and Earl Bolick) Within The Circle/Who Wouldn't Be Lonely, BSR CD 1003/4. Rounder set 'The Blue Sky Boys' Rounder CD 0052. The booklet has a short essay by Bill Malone. As Bill says: 'The Blue Sky Boys' sound - mandolin, guitar and 2 voices - may suggest an earlier phase of American existence, but the sentiments they express are timeless. They speak directly to our hearts, if we will but listen, as few entertainers in country music history have done'.
7) Katy Dear (64077-) - Tiny Dodson's Circle-B Boys (vcl w/vln & gtrs) - 06/07/1938.

The Carter Family recorded their version of “Drowsy Sleeper” entitled “Who’s That Knocking On My Window” (64102-A) in 1938 while in NY. Today the song has been recently recorded by such diverse artists as Dave Van Ronk, Old Crowe Medicine Show and Dolly Parton.

That's enough bloodshed for now,

Richard

Silver Dagger

Hello,

Today we're going to feature one of my fav tragic ballads "The Silver Dagger." I first learned this song in NC as Katie Dear. It's a bit tricky to play at first because there's a measure with only 2 beats. I really like the Old Crow Medicine Show's version; we played a show with them back in 2000.

Below is my painting of the Silver Dagger. (Click to enlarge)

Silver Dagger: 30" by 40" Acrylic on canvas. C 2008. The Silver Dagger is one of the oldest tragic ballads found in the Appalachian Mountain region. The chronology of the "Drowsy Sleeper" Songs can be traced from a broadside from Chrome, Sheffield, 1817 entitled the "Drowsy Fleeper" (Drowsy Sleeper) in the Bodelian Library, England, to "Katie Dear" in the 1930’s in the US.

Other names include "Silver Dagger;" "Awake, Awake;" "Who's That Knocking?;" "Peggy Dear;" "Kentucky Mountain;" "Julianne;" and "Willie Darling." The lyrics are from several versions but the plot compares to Romeo and Juliet. There are five separate scenes telling the sad story.

Silver Dagger

"Who's that knocking at my window,
Knocks so loud and won't come in?"
'Tis your own true-hearted lover
Rise you up and let him in.

Her hair was gold and her eyes was sparkling,
And her cheeks were diamond red.
And on her breast she wore a lily
To morn the tears that I did shed.

"Oh Katie dear go ask your mother,
If you can be a bride of mine.
If she says yes come back and tell me,
If she says no we'll run away."

"Oh Willie dear I cannot ask her,
She's in her room up taking a rest.
And by her side is a silver dagger,
To slay the man that I love best."

Then he picked up that silver dagger
And stove it through his weary heart.
Saying, "Goodbye Katie, goodbye darling,
At last the time has come to part.


"Then don't you see that cloud a rising
To shield us from the rising sun;
Oh, won't you be glad my own true lover
When you and I become as one?"

Then she picked up that bloody dagger,
And stove it through her lily-white breast.
Saying, "Goodbye Willie, goodbye mother,
I'll die with the one that I love best."

Red Apple Juice Song Notes

Good Morning,

The Bluegrass Messengers played at Talentfest last night at the Clifton Center. We played two short 3 songs sets: Rollin' My Sweet Baby's Arms; Lonesome Valley; Little Maggie; Hot Corn; Used To Be and Circle Be Unbroken. I want to thank the talented players that performed with me: Dennis Talley Bass, John Dwyer Mandolin, Zack Pursell fiddle, and Murrell Thixton banjo.

Now for Red Apple Juice! This white blues is found throughout the Southeast and Appalachians. Red Apple Juice is known by these different names: Red Rocking Chair; Red Apple Juice; Sugar Baby; Honey Baby; I Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now.

The confusion between the Sugar Babe/Crawdad Song and the Sugar Baby/Red Rocking Chair continues. The Folk Index on-line fails to differentiate and lumps the Sugar Babe/Sugar Baby songs together. Clearly Sugar Babe (Crawdad Song) and Sugar Baby (Red Rocking Chair) are two different songs. The problem is that some Red Rocking Chair songs are named Sugar Babe- such is life!

The origin of the Red Rocking Chair/Red Apple Juice/Sugar Baby songs I am referencing here may be traced back to Child No. 76 "The Lass of Roch Royal." In Scottish Ballads by Robert Cambers 1829 p. 91 the forsaken Lass asks Love Gregory:

Oh who will shoe my bonny foot? And who will glove my hand?
And who will lace my middle jimp Wi’ a new made London band?

Compare to the standard American lyrics found in many "True Lovers Farewell" songs:

Oh, who will shoe your little feet/ And who will glove your hand
And who will kiss your red rosy cheeks/ When I'm in some far off land

Compare to Doc Boggs’ "Sugar Baby" on Brunswick 118 in 1927:

Who'll rock the cradle, And who'll sing the song?
Who'll rock the cradle when I'm gone? Who'll rock the cradle when I'm gone?

The question (posed originally by "The Lass of Roch Royal") is answered:

I'll rock the cradle, And I'll sing the song.
I'll rock the cradle when you’re gone, I'll rock the cradle when you’re gone.

Bogg's 1927 version features "Hub Mahaffey on guitar. John Boggs, Dock's oldest brother, taught him this and Dock kept his brother's tuning. The song was fist collected in 1909 by EC Perrow as "Done All I Can Do."

DONE ALL I CAN DO Earliest collected version E.C. Perrow JOAFL (From Mississippi; negroes; MS. of W. G. Pitts; 1909.)

Done all I can do
Trying to get along wid you;
Gwine to carry you to your mammy pay day.

Dock Boggs made the first as "Sugar Baby" 1927. Both Frank Profitt and Clarence Tom Ashley sang songs close in word and tune to Dock's. The first recording as "Red Apple Juice" was from Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1935. In 1939 Charlie Monroe recorded the song as "Red Rocking Chair." The Country Gentlemen and Doc Watson also used the "Red Rocking Chair" title.

The use of floating verses and the lack of a theme make the lyrics of Red Rocking Chair/Red Apple Juice/Sugar Baby/Honey Baby songs difficult to understand. The song is a white blues about the difficulties of the singer’s lover. Check out my painting in the last blog for one interpretation.

I've got many versions and more info on my web-site: BluegrassMessengers.com

That's all folks for now,

Richard

Red Apple Juice

Hi,

Ready for a glass of red apple juice? Below is my painting of Red Apple Juice (click to enlarge). I love singing the song and have learned several versions. One version in my new book, Mel Bay's Bluegrass Picker's Tune Book (279 pages with stories and historic info about the 213 songs).

This old-time white blues song was first collected in 1909 by EC Perrow as "Done All I Can Do." Some song lyrics come from the Scottish ballad "The Lass of Roch Royal" in 1829.

In the Appalachian Mountains the song is known by different names: Red Rocking Chair/Red Apple Juice/Sugar Baby/Honey Baby/Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now.

My painting takes the song way back; from Eve in the Garden of Eden to eternal life; from the cradle to the grave and beyond. As Eve ponders eating the apple with the serpent watching, apple juice flows from a glass forming a lake of red apple juice. The path takes you from the cradle to the rocking chair and the grave and finally eternal life. The lyrics "who’ll rock the cradle," "ain’t got no use for your red rocking chair" and "laid her in the shade" lead you on a journey as if the red apple juice is the blood of life.

Here are the painting lyrics:

Red Apple Juice

Ain't got no use for your red apple juice,
Ain't got no honey baby now,
Ain't got no honey baby now.

Who'll rock the cradle and who'll sing the song,
Who'll rock the cradle when I’m gone,
Who'll rock the cradle when I’m gone.

Ain't got no use for your red rocking chair,
Ain't got no honey baby there,
Ain't got no honey baby there.

Gave her all I made then I laid her in the shade,
What more can a poor boy do?
What more can a poor boy do?

Usually I sing:

Ain't got no use,

Ain't got no use for your red apple juice,

Ain't got no honey baby now,

Ain't got no honey baby now.

Basically you're just repeating the first line then using the second line as a tag. If you want to purchase a high quality 12" by 16" reproduction of any of my Bluegrass series songs they're just $40, backed with foam core board and ready to hang. Just e-mail me and I'll give you ways to purchase. You can even use pay-pal thought my ESTY site. Email me for info: richiematt@aol.com

Next blog we'll look at the history of the red apples!

Richard

Careless Love: Song Notes

Hi,

Today we'll look at the history of Careless Love and different lyrics. Much of this information is found at The Mudcat Discussion forum. Here's the site: http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm

According to Malcolm Douglas: "The tune is basically 'The Sprig of Thyme', and 'Careless Love' frequently includes floating verses familiar from songs like 'Died For Love'; so its antecedents are essentially British, though re-made in America with new stylistic influences."

In the US the song can be traced back to 1880. Vance Randolph collected a version in 1948 that was learned in 1880. WC Handy writes about Careless Love and Loveless Love in his autobiography, Father of the Blues (Originally published by New York: Macmillan 1941, the below excerpt from the Da Capo Press paperback version pp 147 - 149):

"Loveless Love is another of my songs of which one part has an easily traceable folk ancestry. It was based on the Careless Love melody that I had played first in Bessemer in 1892 and that had since become popular all over the South. In Henderson I was told that the words of Careless Love were based on a tragedy in a local family, and one night a gentleman of that city's tobacco-planter aristocracy requested our band to play and sing this folk melody, using the following words:

You see what Careless Love has done,
You see what Careless Love has done
You see what Careless Love has done,
It killed the Governor's only son.

We did our best with these lines and then went into the second stanza:

Poor Archie didn't mean no harm,
Poor Archie didn't mean no harm,
Poor Archie didn't mean no harm

-But there the song ended. The police stepped in and stopped us. The song, they said, was a reflection on two prominent families. Careless Love had too beautiful a melody to be lost or neglected, however, and I was determined to preserve it.

[. . .]Having created a vogue for Careless Love, which John Niles calls Kelly's Love in his book of folk songs, I proposed to incorporate it in a new song with the verse in the three-line blues form. That week I went to Chicago, and while there I sat in Brownlee's barber shop and wrote Loveless Love, beginning with "Love is like a gold brick in a bunko game." There I wrote the music and made an orchestration which I took next door to Erskin Tate in the Vendome Theatre. His orchestra played it over, and it sounded all right. A copy was immediately sent to the printers.

Without waiting to receive a printed copy, however, I taught Loveless Love to Alberta Hunter, and she sang it at the Dreamland caberet. It made a bull's-eye. Before Alberta reached my table on the night she introduced the song, her tips amounted to sixty-seven dollars. A moment later I saw another lady give her twelve dollars for "just one more chorus." I knew then and there that we had something on our hands and the later history of the song bore this out."

WC Handy's Loveless Love Katherine Handy - Loveless Love is on YouTube. "This is one of the earliest recordings (Jan., 1922 for Paramount) of this moving composition by William Christopher Handy. In spite of the relatively poor sound quality, this song is obviously brilliantly performed by his daughter Katherine and Handy's Memphis Blues Orchestra, directed by W. C. Handy."

I've transcribed some of the words. The last verse surprisingly is the same as the bluegrass "Free Little Bird" which as I recall was derived from a 1800s parlor song Kitty Clyde. Handy's orchestra plays a latin beat throughout. Missing is the fourth verse which I had trouble hearing easily- anyone?

Loveless Love- WC Handy 1921

Love is like a hydrant turns off and on,
Like some friendships when your money's gone.
Love stands in with the loan sharks,when your heart's in throngs.

It I had some strong wings like an aeroplane,
Had some broad wings like an aeroplane.
I would fly away forever,
Never to return again.

Oh love, oh love, oh loveless love
Has said our hearts are goldless gold.
From dreamless dreams and schemeless schemes
How we wreck our love boats on the shoals.

(missing this verse)

If I were a little bird,
I'd fly from tree to tree.
I'd build my nest way up in the air,
Where the bad boys wouldn't bother me.

Here is the additioanl verse Handy mentions in his autobiography. It's not on the UTube recording.

Love is like a gold brick, in a bunko game,
Like some bank note, with a bogus name;
Both have caused many a downfall,
Love has done the same.

Compare this to Billie Holiday's "Loveless Love." Lyrics are from an on-line source (not sure of accuracy) that I edited.

Loveless Love W.C. Handy (Billie Holiday Version)

Love is like a hydrant turns off and on,
Like some friendships when your money's gone.
Love stands in with the loan sharks,
When your heart's in throngs.

It I had some strong wings like an aeroplane
Had some broad wings like an aeroplane.
I would fly away forever
Never to return again.

Oh love oh love oh loveless love
Has said our hearts are goldless gold
From milkless milk and silkless silk
We are growing used to soul-less souls

Such grafting times we never saw
That's why we have a Pure Food Law
In everything we find a flaw
Even love oh love oh loveless love

Just to fly away from loveless love

CARELESS LOVE
(Bessie Smith, New York, May 26 1925)

Love, Oh love, Oh careless love
You fly to my head like wine
You wrecked the life of a-many poor girl
And you nearly spoiled this life of mine

Love, Oh love, Oh careless love
In your clutches of desire
You made me break a-many true vow
Then you set my very soul on fire.

Love, Oh love, Oh careless love
All my happiness I've left
You fill my heart with them worried old blues
Now I'm walkin', talkin' to myself.

Love, Oh love, Oh careless love
Trusted you now it's too late
You made me throw my only friend down
That's why I sing this song of hate.

Love, Oh love, Oh careless love
Night and day I weep and moan
You brought the wrong man into this life of mine
For my sins till judgement I'll atone.

Here's the link to listen to Bessie Smith: http://www.redhotjazz.com/bessie.html The lyrics are by WC Handy. They are composed lyrics and not the folk lyrics that he heard in 1892 although a few lines may remain.

Here is Riley Puckett's version of 'Careless Love'. Puckett was the blind guitarist and singer for the supergroup, The Skillet Lickers based out of Atlanta. It is interesting that he uses the 'a-many poor' expression rather than 'many a poor', as in the Bessie Smith version.

CARELESS LOVE

Source: transcription from Riley Puckett 'Old-Time Greats Vol 2' Old Homestead OHCD-4174. Riley recorded this twice: on 29 Oct 1931 (issued May 1932 as Co 15747-D) and on 29 March 1934 (issued in September 1934 as Bb B5532). There is no indication on the Old Homestead CD on which of these was the source of the reissue.

Love, oh love, oh careless love
Love, oh love, oh love divine
You broke the heart of a-many poor boy
But you'll never break this heart of mine

Now love, oh love, that is untrue
Love, oh love, that is untrue
Love, oh love, that is untrue
It's hard to love someone that don't love you

You robbed me of my silver and my gold
You robbed me of my silver and my gold
You robbed me of my silver and my gold
But you can't rob me of my soul

Oh take me back to Caroline
Take me back to Caroline
Take me back to Caroline
To see that girl I left behind

Now on these railroad banks I stand
On these railroad banks I stand
On these railroad banks I stand
A-shooting at another man

Love, oh love, oh careless love
Love, oh love, oh love divine
You broke the heart of a-many poor boy
But you'll never break this heart of mine

That's all for now,

Richard

Careless Love

Hi,

Below is my painting of Careless Love, a song that is a blues, jazz and bluegrass standard.



Careless Love 30" by 40" Acrylic on canvas. C 2008. WC Handy, father of the blues, claimed he learned the song back in 1892. His version 1921 "Loveless Love" recorded by Bessie Smith and his 1925 folk version paved the way for jazz and blues recordings. Collected as early as 1909 the song was popular among Country musicians in the late 1920s and 30s. Careless Love was recorded by Dock Boggs, Riley Puckett, and also Ernest Stoneman.

My painting begins on the left side above the lyrics with the lovers (in the trees) meeting in a densely wooded background. Their profiles emerge from two tree trunks. The entire cabin scene shows the result; the young girl who is now pregnant, stares in the distance as her lover (on far right) passes the cabin door and won’t come in. While their hound dog lies impassively on the porch and her father sits in a rocking chair whittling wood, her mother raises a shotgun towards the young man who hasn't taken responsibility for his actions.

If you are intersted in buying my original paintings or very affordable prints $40 for a "12 by 16" glossy color print with backing (ready to be hanged) please e-mail me: richiematt@aol.com

One touch I added was a bee pollinating a daisey (left bottom). The lyrics which are difficult to read are the standard lyrics sung in the mountains by a woman (I'll post the man's lyrics as well):


Careless Love

Love, oh love, my careless love,
Love, oh love, my careless love.
Love, oh love, oh careless love,
Oh look what careless love has done.

Once I wore my apron low,
Once I wore my apron low.
Once I wore my apron low,
I could not keep you from my door.

Now my apron strings won't pin,
Now my apron strings won't pin.
Now my apron strings won't pin,
You pass my door and won't come in.

I love my mama and papa, too,
I love my mama and papa, too.
I love my mama and papa, too,
I'd leave them just to go with you.

You’ve gone and broke this heart of mine,
You’ve gone and broke this heart of mine.
You’ve gone and broke this heart of mine,
It'll break that heart of yours sometime.


These are similar the the lyrics sung by Jean Ritchie. Now here are the man's lyrics that I used to sing:

Love, oh love, oh careless love,
Love, oh love, oh careless love.
Love, oh love, oh careless love,
Oh look what careless love has done.

Sorrow, sorrow to my heart,
Sorrow, sorrow to my heart,
Sorrow, sorrow to my heart,
Since I and my true love did part.

I wish that lonely train would come,
I wish that lonely train would come,
I wish that lonely train would come,
Gotta go back where I come from.

Compare this to Careless Love in 1929 by Byrd Moore & His Hotshots [Clarence Ashley and Clarence Greene].

CARELESS LOVE

Love, oh love, how can it be
Love, oh love, how can it be
Love, oh love, how can it be
To love someone that don't love me

I wish that eastbound train would run
I wish that eastbound train would run
I wish that eastbound train would run
And carry me back where I come from

I used to be a brakeman on a train
I used to be a brakeman on a train
I used to be a brakeman on a train
But now I wear a ball and chain

Never put a stranger from your door
Never put a stranger from your door
Never put a stranger from your door
If you do, you'll reap just what you sow

Byrd Moore & His Hotshots recorded this on October 23, 1929 in Johnson City, Tennessee, and it was issued as Columbia 15496-D in February 1930. Transcription from reissue on Various Artists 'A Collection of Mountain Songs' County LP 504. Byrd Moore & His Hotshots had recorded the song in 1928 for Gennett in Richmond, Ind, and that was issued as Gnt 6824 in June 1929.

In the next blog we'll look at the history of the song and some other versions,

Richard

Molly and Tenbrooks- Song Notes

Hi,

One the 213 songs that appears in my new book, Mel Bay's Bluegrass Picker's Tune Book (279 pages with stories and historic info about the songs) is the "old Kentucky folksong" Molly and Tenbrooks adapted by the father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe.

In my last blog is my painting of the song. In this blog I'll give some more detailed background info. The Kentucky-bred horse Ten Broeck was undoubtedly named after the famous horseracing entrepreneur Richard Ten Broeck, owner of the great horse, Lexington. Ten Broeck is still a city (and street) located in Jefferson County, KY in the Louisville metro area very near where I now live!

Here's an actual short preview article from the NY Times:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9402E7DB143EE73BBC4B53DFB2668383669FDE&oref=slogin
Remember $10,000 was a boatload of money back in 1878. I'd say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million today!

Here’s an account of "THE GREAT RACE" from THE VERNON PIONEER; Volume IV Vernon, Lamar Co, Ala. July 19, 1878 No. 10 Louisville, KY, July 4.

The great race between Ten Broeck and Mollie McCarthy was run today. It was a match for $5,000 a side, making a stake of $10,000. The amount of money at stake was not what made the match of importance. It was the great respective portions of the country, and sectional and state pride and interest.

Ten Broeck is admittedly the favorite and champion of the great Mississippi and Ohio valleys, as Mollie McCarthy is of the whole pacific slope, and California especially. It was not the Atlantic slope against the Pacific, but the great Central Valley of our country against the region beyond the Rocky Mountains. As such the horses met, representatives of widely separate sections of the United States.

Entering the fourth mile, Mollie dropped down to a mere hand gallop, and Ten Broeck was doing little more, but he had just gait enough to drop her ten lengths around the turn to the quarter pole. Keeping on in a steady gallop, he drew away from her fifty yards by the time he reached the far turn. Going on in his hand gallop he drew more and more away from her, and when he entered the home stretch she was a hundred yards behind, and had dropped down into a hand trot, and soon was stopped entirely. In a slow gallop, but not at all at case, Ten Broeck came home, finishing the fourth mile in 2:26 ¾ , and the heat in 8: 19 ¾. Mollie did not come to the stand at all, and the figures run up showed Ten Broeck first and Mollie distanced. Kentuckians rejoiced that their favorite had won, but all were disappointed with the indifferent race.

Here’s another account from Thoroughbred Heritage: Mollie made the then difficult trip across the Rockies; the rails over the mountains in the west that carried her had been completed less than eight years earlier. The day of the race, July 4, 1878, dawned clear, but the track was slow, due to a heavy shower the previous night, footing Mollie had displayed a disinclination to like.

The crowd at the Louisville Jockey Club was the largest seen to that time, with some estimates putting its size at 30,000, an observer reporting that all trains, extra trains, steamboats and inner-city transport jammed to capacity to reach the grounds. Mollie received applause from the crowd when she appeared in her white sheet, but the crowd roared when Ten Broeck stepped onto the track. They started evenly, and Mollie led for the first mile, "with such a beautiful and apparently easy stroke, and the horse seemingly at labor, but really annoyed at restraint, that a shout went up that she had already beaten him."

Mollie led for the second mile, but after the quarter pole Ten Broeck drew ahead, and by the time they had reached 2-1/2 miles he was leading by a length, and at the third mile he was ahead by twenty yards. At 3-1/2 miles Mollie gave up the chase, and Ten Broeck cantered home easily in the slow time of 8:19-3/4. "Such a shout as went up over the triumph of Ten Broeck, and such a scene of wild and extravagant excitement, I never saw before, and never expect to again, outside the impulsive state of Kentucky." It was Mollie's first defeat, in fact, her first defeat in any heat at any distance. This race was Ten Broeck's last.

The Mollie and Tenbrooks song, as Wilgus and others have asserted, may be related to "Skewball" and other Irish horse-race ballads which pre-dated the 1878 match race in Louisville. It is also said to have been authored within a few days of the actual race, and very quickly began to circulate in variant forms (the one hallmark of a true folksong), with some of these being "collected" in the late 19th century. Despite Monroe's definitive bluegrass version, variations persist (compare the verses and wording of the Stanley Bros. take on it), and recordings have also been made by blues and country musicians (Cousin Emmy, for one!) under a variety of related titles, like "Old Timbrook Blues," "Old Kimball," and the understandable "Run Molly Run." There are also African-American versions of the ballad which were circulated.

Various versions have surfaced but Monroe’s is the classic bluegrass version. Where Monroe learned his version of Molly is not documented. Two early versions by the Carver Boys and Warde Ford are possible sources. "Tim Brook" was recorded by The Carver Boys in 1929, and released in 1930. It's now on Music of Kentucky, vol. 1 (Yazoo); The Carver Brothers version is a related version of "Ain't that Skippin' and Flyin'" similar to the Allen Brothers.

Warde Ford's version (audio; rec. September 3, 1939, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Boomtown [Central Valley], Shasta County, California) of "The Hole in the Wall -- Alternate title: Timbrooks & Molly" can be heard on-line at California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties. Another though different early version is "Run Mollie Run," which was recorded on October 7, 1927 in Chicago and issued as Vocalion 1141by Henry Thomas. Newer versions include Molly and Tenbrooks by Steve Gillette and Linda Albertano, Cherry Lane Music, 1967 and the Kingston Trio on "Goin Places." The Trio changed a few names around to avoid copyright problems.

At age six Mollie won Chicago's Garden City Cup, and, back in California, a purse race in San Francisco. She had won 15 of her 17 races, and was retired to Rancho Santa Anita. She produced three foals in succession to Baldwin's home stallions, between 1881 and 1883. She died on March 15, 1883, soon after dropping her filly by Rutherford, which was poignantly, or perhaps matter-of-factly, named Mollie's Last.

For another detailed account: http://www.tbheritage.com/Portraits/MollieMcCarty.html

Ten Broeck had been buried under a fancy monument at the central Kentucky farm where he had been foaled, which was called "Nantura Stock Farm." The grave of Ten Broeck, which is located on private land, far back (and invisible) from the road linking Midway and Frankfort (Lexington's "Old Frankfort Pike"). The gravestone's text says "TEN BROECK / Bay Horse / Folded [sic] on Nantura / Stock Farm / Woodford Co., KY / June 29, 1872 / DIED / June 23, 1887 / PERFORMANCES / 1 Mile 1 39 3/4 / 2 Mile 2 49 1/4 / [and so on, extending down the gravestone to the final notation: 4 Mile 7 15 3/4."

And that my friends is the "Tail of Two Horses"

Richard