Barbara Allen- Tomes (Jones) (VA) 1918 Sharp P
[Single stanza From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, 1932 Sharp/Karpeles. Notes from the 1932 edition follow. An excerpt from Sharp's diary is given.
In the notes her last name is Jones- I assume this is right and it's simply incorrectly read (Tomes) from his Diary and transcription.
R. Matteson 2015]
No. 24. Barbara Allen.
Texts without tunes -.—Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 84. Gavin Greig's Folk-Song of the North-East, ii, arts. 165 and 166. Ashton's Century of Ballads, p. 173. Miss Burne's Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 543. Garret's Merrie Book of Garlands, vol. ii. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, pp. 204 and 206. D. Scarborough's On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs, p. 59. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 285 ; xx. 250; xxii. 63 ; xxviii. 144; xxix. 161.
Texts with tunes :—Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, I. 87 and 89. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, 111 and 265; ii. 15 and 80. Kidson's Traditional Tunes, P- 37- Journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society, i. 45. Chappel's Popular Music of the Olden Times, ii. 538. Kidston's Garland of English Folk Songs, p. 74. Joyce's Ancient Irish Music, p. 79. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Bishop Percy's Reliques, No. 53. Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 32. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 22 (also published in English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, i. 20, and One Hundred English Folk-Songs, p. 20). Thomson's Scottish Songs, iii. 29. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 96 and 523. Reed Smith's South Carolina Ballads, p. 129. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs of Nova Scotia, No. 9. Wyman and Brockway's Lonesome Tunes} p. 1. Journal of American Folk-Lore, vi. 132 ; xxii. 74 (tune only); xxxv. 343 ; xxxix. 97 and 211. Musical Quarterly, January 1916, p. 20 (tune only). British Ballads from Maine, p. 195. Davis's
Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 302 and 577. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 40. Sandburg's American Songbag, p. 57.
Aunt Maria Jones, the singer of version P, was an old coloured woman of 85 who had been a slave. She sang very beautifully, in a wonderfully musical way and with clear and perfect intonation.
Additional MS notes: "Aunt Maria is an old coloured woman, aged 85, who was a slave belonging to Mr. Coleman who freed her after the war and gave her the log cabin in which she now lives, which used to be the overseers house. I found her sitting in front of her cabin smoking a pipe. We sang her The Sinnerman which delighted her beyond anything and made her dub me a soldier of Christ!"
Sharp diary 1918 page 145. Wednesday 22 May 1918 - Nellysford
Breakfast at 6.30 -7 and then wrote up in my books the tunes I got yesterday — in fact a very fine lot. Then we go out on the hunt and call at the Small’s first where we get a splendid bunch including one or two well above the average. A Miss Small — now Lola Harris accompanies us to another woman, Mrs Willy Roberts, about 2 miles away — one of the hottest walks I have ever essayed! There we got a really beautiful version of The Cruel Mother and others. By lunch time we had walked for some 4 or 5 hours and got together 8 or 9 splendid songs. A Presbyterian Minister was at lunch much to the enjoyment of Miss Gardelow, sister of Mrs Godwin who lives here and shares with the latter the onus of the housekeeping. The Godwins are well to do farmers, by no means lacking in refinement or education, rather clever, but very simple and in many ways unsophisticated. After tea we went to see an old Coloured woman, Aunt Maria Tomes who sang us one good tune. She was a slave woman and was born 80 years ago — rather a nice old lady. She smoked a pipe. Weather very hot to day — really a July rather than a May day. Everyone predicts rain, but so far it has held off.
P. [Barbara Allen] Sung by Aunt MARIA JONES (Tomes- sic) at Nellysford, Va., May 22, 1918
Hexatonic (no 6th).
Sweet William died choked up in love,
I'll die for him in sorrow,
Sweet William died choked up in love,
I'll die for him in sorrow