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Shady Grove​/​Cluck Old Hen

from I Won​’​t Go Home ’Til Morning by Sarah McQuaid

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about

‘Shady Grove’ was a song my mother and I used to sing on long car journeys, making up extra verses as we went along. Jean Ritchie includes the song in her Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, and it’s in Lomax as well, but the words in both versions are completely different from the ones my mother taught me. I’ve played it on this CD as an instrumental, but here, for the record, are the lyrics I learned when I was little:

Chorus:
Shady Grove, my true love
Shady Grove my honey
Shady Grove my true love
Pretty Shady Grove

Wish I had a great big house
Thirty stories high
Every storey in that house
Filled with chicken pie

(Chorus)

Wish I was in Arkansas
Far away from here
One arm round the liquor keg
The other around my dear

(Chorus)

If I don’t get married in the fall
I’ll marry in the spring
Marry that pretty girl down the road
Who wears a diamond ring

(Chorus)

If I don’t get married in the spring
I’ll marry in the fall
If I can’t marry Shady Grove
I won’t get married at all

(Chorus)

None of those verses appear in any printed or online source that I can find, so I’ve no idea where my mother got them.

‘Cluck Old Hen’ has lyrics, too ... including some rather rude ones, which I won’t give here! I learned the tune from a recording of banjo player Wade Ward (1892-1971) made on 31 August, 1959, in Galax, Virginia, which appears on Alan Lomax’s compilation Southern Journey: Banjo Songs, Ballads and Reels from the Southern Mountains. As Lomax wrote in his liner notes: “Wade has picked the same beautiful banjo from his childhood and, for many, his unhurried playing and superb phrasing represent the epitome of Virginia mountain banjo style.”

For seven years after I graduated from college, I worked in Vintage Instruments in Philadelphia, where the resident violin repairman was a brilliant old-time fiddler called Rafe Stefanini (see www.rafestefanini.com for more info!). Fragments of elegantly played tunes in that lovely relaxed old-time style were constantly floating down the stairs from his attic workshop.

I don’t pretend to any expertise in this style, and I know that the two tunes I’ve chosen to play as guitar instrumentals are standard chestnuts played at old-time sessions around the globe. But I do love them ... so I can only hope that maestros like Rafe will forgive me for giving them a whirl.

credits

from I Won​’​t Go Home ’Til Morning, released October 28, 2008
Trad arr. S. McQuaid/G. O’Beirne
Sarah – melody guitar
Gerry O’Beirne – tiple, backing guitars (6 and 12 string)

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Sarah McQuaid Penzance, UK

“One of the most instantly recognisable voices in current music … Shades of Joni Mitchell in a jam with Karen Carpenter and Lana Del Rey.” —Neil March, Trust The Doc

“Captivating, unorthodox songwriting … layered satin vocals ... enthralling, harrowing arrangements … a gateway into a true innovator’s soul.” —PopMatters

See sarahmcquaid.com/about for more info. ... more

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