Learned from the Cecil Sharp collection, this is a Virginia version of "Lord Randall."

American Stranger

John Randolph

"Pretty Polly," learned from a field recording made by Max Hunter of Donia Cooper of West Fork, Arkansas, in 1959. Though the title may remind listeners of the famous American murder ballad, this is actually a version of the Child ballad  #4, "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight." I accompany it here with the lap dulcimer.

Pretty Polly

One of a number of departed sailor songs printed on ballad sheets in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, "Adieu, My Lovely Nancy" (also known as "The Sailor's Farewell," "Swansea Town," and "The Holy Ground") has been collected in England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the United States. I learned this version from the Max Hunter Collection. Hunter was a traveling salesman and amateur folksong collector from Springfield, Missouri, who amassed an impressive number of field recordings from the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks. When I was a teenager I learned many songs from the cassette tapes of his collection that were housed in the Springfield Public Library. Hunter recorded this song in 1959 from Bertha Lauderdale, of Fayetteville, Arkansas. She had learned the song from her grandfather, who, in turn, had learned it from his grandmother, when "he was a young child in Ireland." Since I recorded the song on American Stranger (Waterbug 038), Altan, Jeff Davis, Nancy Conescu, Gerald Trimble, and Pete Coe have all added it to their repertoires. I wish Bertha were alive today to see how many people her grandfather's song has inspired. You can hear Bertha singing this and three other songs by accessing the Hunter Collection at http://maxhunter.missouristate.edu

Adieu My Lovely Nancy

Julie Henigan

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