Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?

Subject: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From:
Date: 29 Dec 02 - 01:32 PM

When I originally learned The Bonny Earl of Murray, it was to the alternate tune mentioned on the lyrics page (I think from Scottish & Border Battles & Ballads).

Now I'm trying to track down a recording of the song using the tune I know, and I'm not having much luck.

The more common tune seems to be used in all the recordings I've found thus far:

Old Blind Dogs - The Bonnie Earl o'Moray
Carl Peterson - Bonnie Earl of Murray - album The Auld Scotch
Kenneth Mckellar - The Bonnie Earl of Moray
Standing Stones - The Bonnie Earl of Moray

Any leads to a recording of the song with the second tune instead?

Many thanks!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 30 Dec 02 - 07:19 AM

The "alternate tune" [See Digital Tradition Mirror: Bonny Earl of Murray (alternate); the link to midi in the DT is inactive at present] is the one in James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (Folklore Associates reprint of the 1853 ed., p. 185 [no. 177]; first published in vol. 2, 1788), and is in Brander's Scottish and Border Battles and Ballads (p. 97). The tune was first recorded in William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonicus, vol. II (1733; Folklore Associates reprint, pp. 8-9) (also in Bronson's Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, vol. III, p. 159). Several versions (with tunes) are collected and discussed in Edward D. Ives' The Bonny Earl of Murray: The Man, the Murder, the Ballad (University of Illinois Press, 1997). I haven't heard vocal recordings of this version; an instrumental arrangement is on Italian Musicians in London (track 25).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: GUEST,Mac Tattie
Date: 30 Dec 02 - 06:53 PM

The 2nd tune is, I beleve, for a different set of words. A SONG called "The Bonnie Earl 'o Murray" and not the BALLAD. cheers

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Dec 02 - 08:41 PM

Child's A and B texts do differ quite considerably, but they are both essentially "the ballad". See Ian A. Olson's article in The Folk Music Journal, 1997: The Dreadful Death of the Bonny Earl of Murray: Clues from the Carpenter Song Collection.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From:
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 09:11 PM

Just as a followup, thus far I have located one recording of the older tune, by Isla St. Clair on her "Royal Lovers & Scandals".

As far as I can tell, I heard this tune originally on a cassette tape that was from a friend of a friend, done by a group called "County Down" and I think through Fretless/Rounder. I have not been able to track down any details of this particular recording, but I'm still looking.

--C.L. Ward

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: Compton
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 09:13 AM

Me thinks it should be Bonny Earl of MORREY..try that!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 12:32 PM

The version of this song that I originally heard and liked was by Robbie O'Connell on his album Close to the Bone. On that album the tune was titled "A Earl of Murray (Child 181)"

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: rich-joy
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 03:08 AM

very slighht thread creep - have you all seen the book called "The Bonny Earl of Murray : The Man, The Murder, The Ballad" by Edward D. Ives - Tuckwell Press, Scotland, 1997 :

"Moray was popular figure in his time and the two extant ballads on his murder are both expressions of a people's anger and a means of keeping that anger alive. Ives traces their history across four centuries showing that while they might not have been much sung in croft and bothy, one of them has earned itself a place in the concert world and in the great folksong revival of the 1960's and thereafter."


I recently purchased it from a remainded bookseller ...

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Bonny Earl of Murray - 2nd tune recs?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 03:25 PM

I have a recording of Ewan Macoll doing the Earl of Morray which is different from any other that I have heard.

Don