{"id":207,"date":"2009-02-07T17:29:28","date_gmt":"2009-02-07T22:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soupgreens.com\/?p=207"},"modified":"2009-02-07T17:29:28","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T22:29:28","slug":"roots-of-new-orleans-funeral-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"roots of New Orleans funeral music"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"MP3<\/a>
\nFLAC<\/a>
\nOgg Vorbis<\/a>
\nYouTube<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Today’s YouTube masterpiece<\/a> is a morbid bluesy number with a Spanish tinge that was published in 1857. I discovered it because Jelly Roll Morton quotes it in “Dead Man Blues.” This song is still around in the New Orleans funeral style that Jelly Roll was riffing on — you hear this tune as the gothic minor snippet before things get happy. <\/p>\n

But in that context you never get to hear the whole thing, just a little snatch of it, so what I did here is let it keep rolling out all the way to the end. Then at the end I quote the beginning of “Yellow Dog Rag” by W. C. Handy, as if that was going to be the uptempo number the whole thing was setting up. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What’s the song about?<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

In 1839, beset by the recent deaths of her husband, brother, sister, and infant son, twenty-seven-year-old mary Dana began to pour out her grief in verse. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Lyrics:<\/P><\/p>\n

\nFlee as a bird to your mountain
\nThou who art weary of sin
\nGo to the clear flowing fountain
\nWhere you may wash and be clean
\nFly, for th’avenger is near thee
\nCall, and the Savior will hear thee
\nHe on His bosom will bear thee
\nO thou who art weary of sin
\nO thou who art weary of sin<\/p>\n

He will protect thee forever
\nWipe ev’ry falling tear
\nHe will forsake thee, O never
\nSheltered so tenderly there
\nHaste, then, the hours are flying
\nSpend not the moments in sighing
\nCease from your sorrow and crying
\nThe Savior will wipe ev’ry tear
\nThe Savior will wipe ev’ry tear\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I learned from two sheet music sources — the Library of Congress digitization of the 1885 publication<\/a> and Stan Sanderson’s Lilypond transcription at Mutopia<\/a>, where you can also get MIDI.<\/p>\n

The recording is under a Creative Commons BY SA 3.0 license<\/a>. The guitar is a National Estralita. The video was made with Garageband, iMovie HD, and the built in camera in my laptop. Needless to say there’s a Nick Cave \/ Tom Waits influence in the singing and a Flamenco influence in the guitar. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MP3 FLAC Ogg Vorbis YouTube Today’s YouTube masterpiece is a morbid bluesy number with a Spanish tinge that was published in 1857. I discovered it because Jelly Roll Morton quotes it in “Dead Man Blues.” This song is still around in the New Orleans funeral style that Jelly Roll was riffing on — you hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mymusic","category-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thejoydrops.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}