Barbry Allen- Cornett (KY) 1898 Roberts/REC
[My spelling of Barbrey. From In the Pine; Roberts, 1978, also his recording. His notes follow. It's unclear what the relationship is, if any, with J.D. Cornett.
I've edited some of the text from the recording 1959 Cohen recording (see his notes at bottom of this page). This is an example of the old archaic style in a minor mode.
R. Matteson 2015]
Without listing, we find the ballad in virtually all collections. This wide distribution was aided by the songsters, magazines, and bulletins that have printed it. Kentucky has produced its share of texts: SharpK (5 texts), BB, tsKH, FKM, KySyll, KFR, DD, SG, KMF, LT. There are 67 texts in my collection. Lawless lists 83 in print.
The present text was recorded by Catherine Nickels, Charles Patton, and Beulah Patrick in 1961 from "Banjer" Bill Cornett Hindmen, Knott County, who said he had learned it and about two hundred other songs from his people, "Barbrey Allen" in about 1898. (See the recordings issued by the Folksong Archive of the Library of Congress.)
SCALE: Pentatonic (c d f g Ub). MODE: IV. Plagal; leans toward Dorian mode. RANGE: c'- d" (Major 9th). TONAL CENTER: C. The harmonic type motive in measures 1 and 3, plus its inversion in measure 5, give a temporary impression of G as the final (tonic center). PHRASE STRUCTURE: A A1 B C (2, 2, 2, 2). MELODIC RELATIONSHIP: Close relationship with NCF IV, No. 2646; less in Sl. Cf., SharpK I,24L, M, N, and P, for partial relationship of tonal material. MTBV, No. 34AA shows close tonal correlation in first two phrases, although metrically different. TTCB II, p. 378, No. 155, phrase A, closest of 198 variants to this tune.
[Banjo intro]
Early, early in the spring,
Buds they all were swellin',
There was a young man taken down sick,
For the love of Barbrey[1] Allen.
He put his waitress[2] on his horse,
Sent him to her dwelling,
Saying, "Master dear said for you to come here,
If your name's Barbrey Allen."
Slowly, slowly she got up,
Slowly she went to him,
But all she said when she got there,
"Young man, I hear you're dying."
"Yes, I'm sick and very sick,
And death is on me dwellin',
No better will I ever get,
Till I get Barbrey Allen."
"If you are sick and very sick,
And death is on you dwellin,
No better will you ever get,
You'll never get Barbrey Allen.
"Don't you remember in yonder[3] town,
where the ladies all were dwellin',
You drank a health to them all around,
But you slighted Barbrey Allen."
"Yes, I remember in yonder[3] town,
The ladies all were dwellin'
I treated a health to them all around,
But my love was for Barbrey Allen."
He turned his pale face to the wall,
Turned his back upon her,
Said, "Adieu, adieu to this wide world,
Be kind to Barbrey Allen."
She had not gone more than half way home,
She heard the death bell ringin'
It rang so clear it seemed to say,
"Hard-hearted Barbrey Allen."
She looked to the east, she looked to the west,
She saw the corpse a-comin',
Saying, "Hand me down that cold clay corpse,
And let me look upon him."
The more she looked the more she blushed,
She bust out into cryin';
Said, "I once could have saved his sweet little life,
It was all in the want of tryin'."
Like Sweet William died today,
And Barbrey died tomorrow,
Sweet William died for his own true love,
And Barbrey died for sorrow.
Sweet William was buried in the new church yard,
And Barbrey in the old one,
From the new church yard there sprung a rose,
From the old one there sprung a briar.
They grew and grew and rose so tall,
They could not grow any higher,
They linked and tied in a true love knot,
The rose around the briar.
1. normally written, Barbry
2. implies, "waiters" or "waiter" means servant
3. sings, "yondo"
__________________________
Excerpt from John Cohen’s notes to “The Lost Recordings of Banjo Bill Cornett” (Field Recorder’s Collective FRC304):
Bill Cornett was born in East Kentucky in 1890. He started playing banjo at age eight. His musical flair, he reported, was inherited from his mother who sang ballads to him. He operated a country store two miles outside of Hindman. It is said that he’d rather sit and pick his banjo than wait on customers. In 1956 he was elected to the Kentucky State Legislature, representing Knot and Magoffin counties. A Democrat, he picked and sang his way to his first term. “You know how I win? I get the young folks with my music and the old-folks by fighting for old age benefits.
He was proud of his composition “the Old Age Pension Blues” which he sang on the floor of the Legislature. While serving in the House of Representatives in Frankfort, at age 69 he died of a heart attack while picking his banjo to entertain the customers at a downtown restaurant. The following day, his banjo was banked with flowers at his desk in the House chamber at the Capitol.
I first met him in 1959 at his home near Hindman. Some officials from the United Mine Workers had brought me to his house to hear his music. I was in Kentucky to document local music and Bill was the first person I recorded. Although he was reticent about performing for my tape recorder, he respected the UMW men’s request and for about an hour, Bill played and sang a bunch of songs which I recorded and eventually issued on Folkways “Mountain Music of Kentucky”.
He would often announce during the song, that he was the performer and the composer of the music. He claimed that some of his original songs had been taken from him and plagiarized. He was wary of folksong collectors. He also told me that he had already recorded his best material – it was inside on his tape recorder.
Banjo Bill Cornett died before “Mountain Music of Kentucky” came out, and for many years I asked his family if I might hear Bill’s own recordings. I tried several times during the first ten years, and then gave up. In 1995 I visited the Hindman Settlement School, and asked about memories of Bill Cornett.
In 2002, forty three years after my initial recordings I heard from Bill’s son Brode Cornett who told me that he had listened to the tapes, and heard his father’s voice say that he wanted his music to be heard. The original quarter inch tapes had been destroyed, but eventually Brode sent me his own cassette copies of the tapes. That is how these recordings came to light, so many years after they were recorded