Tune Req: All Day Singin'

Subject: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,Sandra Gordon
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:58 PM

Some one posted back to me the song I was referring to with the only lyrics this woman knew "all day singing, Supper on the ground". Now the same friend told me she needs the tune which I thought she knew because she knew the tune to the first verse. Could someone help me out here? The website I was referred to had no tune on it, but would appreciate any help you could offer in finding the tune. Written music is fine. Thanks

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Click for lyrics in previous thread

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 10:19 PM

I did not have any luck at all. Does the website have an e mail link? Lots do......I'll see if I can find an e mail for you.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 10:24 PM

AHA! Here is her e mail.... [e-mail] Just write and ask her if she has the tune. I can't find it anywhere on line, and the only one I know is an original by Elkin Thomas called the Singing School Song. I don't know if the tune is the same as the original or not. Elkin based his song on this one........

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,Sandra Gordon
Date: 11 Nov 01 - 09:48 PM

Thank you Sorcha, I already emailed this woman and am waiting for her reply. If you can give me the URL to her website, I'd like to go back there. Have a good one and thanks again

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Nov 01 - 10:39 PM

Hi, Sandra - Susanne's wonderful Website is http://www.mysongbook.de/.
If you e-mail me, I can probably arrange to get a recording of the song to you.
-Joe Offer (click to e-mail)-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,Susy
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 12:19 AM

You can find the lyrics and melody in Albert E Brumley's book titled "All the Day a Singin'" I can't put my hands on my cjopy at the moment, but he has several old-time music books out: Songs of the Pioneers, America's Memory Valley, Gospel (his dad wrote I'll Fly Away.) Publishing address is: 345 West Highway 54 Camdenton, Missouri 65020. Since I have no idea what part of the country you're from, writing them is probably the best way to get it. It was probably published in the late 70's.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 05:19 PM

Ricky Skaggs sings "The Little Mountain Church House," which contains the line, "all day Sunday singing and supper on the ground." Chords and lyrics can be found at Cowpie. The song is on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Part Two."

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,Joelle
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 06:06 PM

Are you referring to these lyrics:

Al the day a singin'/supper on the ground/older folks and young'ens/gathered around/Every kind of vittle/you ever did see/Come along Mary/and set by me

I know the melody but I don't know how to notate and I don't know who wrote it.

Subject: LYR ADD: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 09:51 AM

Brumley's claim may be full of holes unless he published the song before about 1950.

As far as I know, "All Day Singin'" was written by the fine New Orleans singer Adelaide Van Wey. She sang it on her Folkways LP, issued sometime around 1951 I think.

Van Wey should have been recorded more than she was. Her record had French songs on one side -- En Avant, Grenadier, Tan Patate-la Tchuite, and others -- and on the English side had the following: All Day Singin', The Cheat, Birdie, and Blackbird and Crow.

Of these I think she wrote the first three, the remaining one being a version of the song sometimes known as "Leatherwing Bat." Her melodies were ravishingly simple and beautiful, and I never understood why they had not spread more widely. I totally love her stuff and wish I still had the record.

The "All Day Singin'" lyrics given in the other thread are correct, I believe, except one line, the word she uses is "COME from Gloucester, and Toxaway."

Bob

P.S. Because her songs are so beautiful and so unusual, here are the other two. Apologies if they're already in the DT, I haven't looked, but in any case these are Van Wey's original versions, and may differ from the DT.

THE CHEAT

Up in horse pastures I used to go campin', me and my friends of yore,
Now they pass like they never knowed me, all my friends they pass by my door.

CHO
All my friends they pass by my door, all my friends they pass by my door,
Now they pass like they never knowed me, all my friends they pass by my door.

They caught me cheatin' at poker and blackjack, caught me stealin' their corn,
Now they pass like they never knowed me, oh, I wish I'd never been born.

CHO
Oh, I wish I'd never been born...etc

An ABC of the above:

G G G E G G A A A F A    G    G G F E D---G
A   A F G A G G E C      C D E   E F E D C

E F G   G A F A G---E    E F G   G G F E D----G
A   A F G A G G E C       C D E   E F E D C

========

Loveliest of all is the love song, I always wanted to record it, never did:

BIRDIE

There's others that are much more handsome,
And have finer clothes to wear,
But there ain't ary girl any sweeter
Than Birdie with the coal black hair.

CHO
My Birdie with the coal black hair,
My Birdie with the coal black hair,
There ain't ary girl any sweeter
Than Birdie with the coal black hair.

She's little and light when she dances,
You don't hardly know that she's there,
Whenever we go to the square dance,
My Birdie with the coal black hair.

There's some girls can cut a fine figger,
And some that make all the men stare,
But there ain't ary girl any sweeter
Than Birdie with the coal black hair.

An ABC:
G E E E F E D E G         G A A A C' B A G
G G A F F C' B A G E    E ED D E G-F D C

E E D D E F-E D E-G      G   A A A A D'-C' A G
G A F F C' B A G E       E   E D D E G-E D C

Enjoy...Adelaide Van Wey is a secret too good to keep.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: All Day Singin'
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:44 AM

By the way, I should have noted that the phrase "All day singin' and dinner on the ground" is a commonplace, used in advertising revivals and camp meetings in the south for probably the best part of a century or more.

The idea was, if you would come to hear the preachin', you could get to eat a vast array of food, wonderful delicacies fixed specially for the occasion ... source, also, of the "Methodist Pie" song:

Well, they all go there for to have a good time
And to eat that grub so sly,
Have applesauce, butter, and sugar in the gourd,
And a great big Methodist pie.

Needless to say, the food you could get at the revival gatherings was home cooking and the very best the community ladies could produce. They vied for tastiest and best, fanciest and most delicious, sometimes held bake-off and eating contests as well (though not necessarily under the auspices of the revival), and it was stuff you would be unlikely to get at home unless your Mama or wife was an especially good and versatile cook.

Usual meals were not necessarily sparse but they were plain. Most women had too much to do to have time for fancy cooking every day. They fed men needing a lot of calories, mostly fat, for field work -- they burned it off and many stayed thin as a rail on pork, lard, drippin's, hoecake, johnnycake, etc. But the usual home meal did not offer many choices. "Dinner on the ground," by contrast, attracted top dishes from every woman in the congregation, and was SOME eatin'.

Applesauce was rare. Butter was rare, most people made do with lard in the country. Sugar in the gourd was a real special item for parties only, sucked by the kids to keep them quiet. And the average farm wife did not bake pie very often, maybe only for a Sunday treat or not at all. To this day southern wives love to spread a table groaning with food for guests, in part to show they can: barbecue, fried chicken, two or three sorts of potatoes, green beens fixed with salt pork, salads of greens, salads of jello and fruit, biscuits, rolls and other bread, chocolate cake, and pies, pies, pies...

Gawd, and me on diet. You can tell it, can't you?

I do think if it wasn't for "dinner on the ground," religion would never have made such headway in the south.

Bob