Origins: On The Banks Of The Old Pontchartrain

I participate in at least two Zoom song jams and try not to sing the same song more than once. So, going deep into my song collection I ran across this song, which I haven’t sung in quite a while. I first found “On The Banks Of The Old Pontchartrain” on the Wolf Folksong Collection here. It was sung by a Mrs. W.B. Apple and recorded on 7/30/62. Her recording singing this song is here.

Wikipedia gives some background on the song here. “According to biographer Colin Escott, Ramona Vincent, a crippled woman, wrote the words of the song as a poem and sent it to Hank Williams, who put a melody to it”. Hank Williams recorded the song in 1947
here. It was his worst-selling record.

The melody Hank used was not original; it was from the song "When the Curtains of Night are Pinned Back by the Stars," It’s a simple melody, which gets a bit monotonous and boring long before the eight verses are over. Because of that I wrote a variation of the melody, which I use with the third and sixth verses – that makes it less monotonous and adds some interest to the story I think. Here is my score

That’s about all one can say about this song. Joe Offer posted this song on MudCat here but not much more was said about it then. I like the song, it’s an interesting story.

Cheers, S. in Seattle