248. Brady

 

248
Brady

This song seems to be related to 'Brady,' in Gordon's "Old Songs
That Men Have Sung," Adventure, July 30, 1924, p. 191, and to a
song of the same title in Perrow, JAFL xxv 151. Metrically and
phrasally, it resembles 'Duncan and Brady' in Lomax OSC (with
references) 333-4. The Lomax tune is from Parchman, Mississippi,
where it was sung by a Negro convict, and the text is a "composite."
The Lomaxes opine, "The song comes, probably, from the Missis-
sippi Valley."

Some light on its history was afforded by the testimony of Pro-
fessor Ronald J. Slay, of Wagner College, Staten Island, New
York, in a conversation with A. P. Hudson at Durham in June,
1948. A native of Purvis, Lamar county, Mississippi, and, as a
freshman at the University of Mississippi in 1908-9, an informant
of E. C. Perrow {Songs and Rimes from the South), Professor
Slay taught for about twenty-five years at East Carolina Teachers
College, Greenville, North Carolina, until September, 1947, when
he went to Wagner College. His account of the 'Brady' which he
contributed to Perrow's JAFL xxv 151 version is substantially as
follows.

The incident on which the ballad was based occurred about 1900
in Lamar county, near Purvis and Sumrall, Mississippi (old Marion
county). Alfred Bounds was a deputy sheriff. Brady was a would-
be Copeland but a small-time holdup man. Bounds was deputized to
get Brady for one of his crimes — $500 dead, $1000 alive. The two
met on a railroad track, suddenly. Bounds beat Brady to the draw,
cracked each arm in turn, then, when Brady ran, shot iiim in die
back.

In the June 1948 communication to A. P. Hudson, Professor Slaj
sang two stanzas and the chorus of the song which he had given
Perrow in 1908, reversing, however, the order of the stanzas. One
of his 1908 stanzas is in the same meter as Lomax's 'Duncan and
Brady,' and has lines in common with the Lomax text.

'Brady.' "As sung by Miss Cooper Martin, Brier Creek, Wilkes county."
— Note by Dr. Brown.

I Brady went down to the grocery store,

Looked on the counter and looked on the floor,
Looked in the sugar bowl, looked in the pan,
Saying, 'Where in the world is the grocery man ?'

 

572 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE

Chorus :

Singing Brady, singing Brady, oh Brady !
Good Lord, Lord, why didn't you run?

2 Brady went down to the Hcensed saloon.
He thought he'd arrest him a rowdy coon.
He got there — and found himself under arrest —
They shot poor Brady in the breast.
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248

Brady
'Brady' Sung by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Recorded in Wilkes county ; no
date given The voice is a man's, therefore cannot be the one referred to m II
S7I This is confirmed by a statement made by Mr. Lunsford to the present
editor that he sang this song which he had learned from Miss Martm m 1903.

 

For melodic relationship cf. *ASb 198. The melodic progressions of the first
three measures resemble somewhat those of the first six measures of the version
quoted.

Scale: Hexatonic (4), plagal. Tonal Center: e-flat. Structure: mmin (4,4,10)
=: barform.