Clarence Ashley: “The Cuckoo” & “Little Sadie”

Folksinger Clarence “Tom” Ashley left a lasting legacy with his versions of songs like “The Cuckoo” and “Little Sadie,” influencing artists such as Bob Dylan.

Clarence Ashley was among the folk and blues singers “rediscovered” during the 1950s and 1960s. Ashley, known as “Tom,” began performing in the early 1900’s, singing and playing banjo or guitar. He played with artists such as Doc Watson and lived to see his influence on a range of singers, even sharing a stage with Bob Dylan at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. He is known for his performances of songs such as “The Cuckoo” and “Little Sadie.”

Ashley was born in Tennessee on September 29, 1895, and he died in North Carolina on June 2, 1967. You may have first heard his voice on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music records, where one of the songs he performs is “The Coo Coo Bird.”

The song, also with other titles such as “The Cuckoo” and “The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird,” is an English folk song. The song begins with the bird, which is often associated with spring and with infidelity, and then goes on in various versions to lament about luck in love or gambling. Ashley’s version focuses on the latter.

I’ve played cards in England;
I’ve played cards in Spain;
I’ll bet you ten dollars,
I’ll beat you next game
.

In the video below from the DVD “Legends of Old Time Music,” Ashley performs his version of “The Cuckoo.” Also, at the beginning of the clip he is interviewed about his music career. Check it out.

Another song that Ashley recorded, but with a darker tone, is “Little Sadie.” Ashley recorded the folk ballad in 1928. The singer, named Lee Brown, tells about killing a woman (in some versions his wife), fleeing, getting caught, and ultimately being sentenced by a judge: “Forty-one days and forty-one nights / Forty-one years to wear the ball and the stripes.”

Music critic Greil Marcus, writing in the liner notes for Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971), noted, “There’s something horribly laconic about Ashley’s 1929 recording of “Little Sadie.” Crinklingly ominous banjo notes trace a circle in which every story goes back to its beginning and starts up again, a circle in which every act is inevitable, worthless, and meaningless, a folk nihilism long before existentialism caught on in Paris.” Below is Ashley’s version of “Little Sadie.” Check it out.

Bob Dylan recorded a version of “Little Sadie” that appeared on his Self-Portrait (1970) album. And two more versions appear on Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971), which was released in 2013. On the latter album, Marcus found Dylan’s “In Search of Little Sadie” to be “a revelation.”

Marcus traces this Dylan version as the voice of a blustering killer, not caring (as in the character in Ashley’s version). But then the murderer finds fear in what may happen to himself.

In The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, author Michael Gray notes that it is most likely that Dylan’s versions of “Little Sadie” were because of his knowledge of Ashley’s recording. He also notes that Dylan would have known Ashley’s recording of “The Coo-Coo Bird” from the Anthology of American Folk Music.

Dylan’s versions of “Little Sadie” are not on Youtube, but perhaps the most famous descendant of Ashley’s song is Johnny Cash’s version of “Cocaine Blues.” Singer-songwriter T.J. “Red” Arnall wrote “Cocaine Blues” as a reworked “Little Sadie” and recorded the song in 1947. Here, Cash performs “Cocaine Blues” in 1968 at Folsom Prison.

I do not believe anyone has yet connected the subject of the folk song “Little Sadie” to a real person. Some have found evidence that the song originated in an African-American community in the South. Wherever the song came from, singers like Clarence Ashley have kept the tale alive in their own ways.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Rosanne Cash Takes a Stand With “Crawl Into the Promised Land”

    Rosanne Cash engages with the pressing issues we face with her new angry yet hopeful song, “Crawl Into the Promised Land.”

    Rosanne Cash has released a timely new song with John Leventhal, “Crawl Into the Promised Land.” The song tackles many of the issues we have been facing in 2020. In a handwritten note accompanying the song on her website, Cash asks about “Why we elected such an unfit person to guide us, Why do we kill Black people with impunity, Why our leaders dismantle and mock every institution. . . .”

    Cash adds that the “magnitude of the moment requires time and an ocean of reflection.” Recognizing that an election is approaching, the song lyrics ask us to be delivered from Tweets and lies. But it is deep down a song of hope. I even detect what seems to be a reference to her father Johnny Cash (“The old man surely must have known / To kick the lights and make his stand / Would give us strength back from the brink.”

    The video that accompanies “Crawl Into the Promised Land” song is a “visual corollary,” offering images including the Civil Rights, women’s rights movements, and such important figures as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The video was directed by Phyllis Housen and Eric Baker. Check it out.

    Proceeds from the song go to the Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement.

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    Johnny Cash’s Journey and “The Gift”

    Johnny Cash The Gift

    YouTube Originals has produced a documentary about Johnny Cash called, The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash (2019). Director Thom Zimny — who also made Elvis Presley: The Searcher and Springsteen on Broadway, tells the story of the Man in Black. The title is inspired for a term Cash’s mother used to describe Cash’s voice, “the gift.”

    With cooperation from Cash’s estate, Zimny uses archival footage, home movies, and audio interviews to help tell the story. The film focuses on major invents in Cash’s life, such as the death of his brother as a child and the singer’s Folsom Prison concert.

    The documentary is currently streaming for free on YouTube. Check it out in its entirety below.

    What do you think of The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Louis Armstrong and Jimmie Rodgers: “Blue Yodel 9” (Duet of the Day)

    On July 16, 1930, two of the great forefathers of American music met in a Los Angeles recording studio. Louis Armstrong, the great jazz and blues man — and probably America’s greatest contributor to music, had been hired to back up the “Father of Country Music” Jimmie Rodgers on “Blue Yodel 9 (Standing on the Corner).”

    History does not record how the two men came to record this song together. Armstrong and his wife Lillian, who played piano on the recording, had recently moved to California. Armstrong was signed to a different record company (Okeh) than where they were recording at Victor.

    Some have guessed that the two legends must have somehow ran into each other, or that Rodgers proposed the meeting. On “Blue Yodel 9,” Rodgers included some lyrics he took from Nolan Walsh’s 1926 blues recording of “The Bridewell Blues.” And, in addition to the lyrics, Rodgers must have liked the trumpet accompaniment on Walsh’s song, played by Louis Armstrong.

    Unfortunately, Armstrong did not get to sing, but he played his trumpet. Armstrong and Rodgers would never get to record together again, as Rodgers died from tuberculosis in 1933. But they made a great record, and there may have never been a greater teaming of two artists in American music history.

    Although Rodgers and Armstrong never got to combine their vast talents again, Armstrong did later get the chance to return to “Blue Yodel 9” with another country music legend. In the fall of 1970, he appeared on Johnny Cash’s variety show on ABC. During the show, the two men performed the song.

    At the time, Armstrong was not in good health (he would die on July 6, 1971). And his doctors had told him not to play his trumpet. But he did anyway, and this time he got to throw in some vocal riffs with Cash’s yodels. Not surprisingly, Armstrong got a standing ovation. It was awesome.

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    Sheryl Crow & Johnny Cash: “Redemption Day”

    Recently, Sheryl Crow released a video for a new version of her song, “Redemption Day,” combining her vocals with those of Johnny Cash. Cash had recorded Crow’s song not long before his death in 2003.

    Cash’s version originally appeared on his posthumous album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave in 2010. Crow has been using Cash’s version as a duet partner in her live shows, and she thought it was a good time to release the song and video.

    The video features Crow at a piano and images of Cash. Also, we see a young boy intertwined with destructive and hopeful images, as the song warns that we need to take better care of our planet and each other.

    There is a train that’s heading straight
    To Heaven’s gate, to Heaven’s gate;
    And on the way, child and man,
    And woman wait, watch and wait,
    For redemption day.

    Crow explained to Entertainment magazine how having Cash’s voice on the song helps bring home the message about being better people. It’s “because he stood up for what he believed at a time when what he believed wasn’t so popular — it means more.”

    “Redemption Day” will appear on a duets album Crow is releasing on August 30, 2019 called Threads. The album also will feature duets with Keith Richards, Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Willie Nelson, Joe Walsh and Vince Gill.

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