Matthy Groves- Pratt (KY) 1917 Sharp O
[My title. Single stanza (late-middle stanza) with music from English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians I; Sharp/Karpeles 1932, p. 161-182, versions A-Q. Notes from 1932 edition and notes from Sharp's diary follow. I assume Mrs. Webb Pratt is Mrs. Lucindy Pratt; Lucindy being her first name and Webb being her husband's first name.
R. Matteson 2015]
1932 Edition Notes: No. 23. Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard.
Texts without tunes:— Child s English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 81. Reed Smith's South Carolina Ballads, p. 125. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 94. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxiii. 371; xxv. 182.
Texts with tunes:—Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, p. 92. Chappel's Popular Music of the Olden Times, i. 170. MotherwelJ's Minstrelsy,
Appendix, tune No. 21. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs of Nova Scotia, No. 8. Wyman and Brockway's Twenty Kentucky Mountain Songs, pp. 22 and 62. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxx. 309. British Ballads from Maine, p. 150. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 289 and 577.
Sharp diary 1917 page 271. Thursday 20 September 1917 - Hindman
In the morning tramped out 4 miles to Mrs Webb Pratt who sang me 4 or 5 excellent tunes. Back to lunch with Bradley at his hotel and drinks at the drug store afterwards. In the afternoon I spent 2 or more hours with Hilliard Smith who gave me quite a lot of most interesting songs. Back in time for supper at 5.30 and afterwards the girls in the school sang me a lot of songs, some of them very first rate ones. I gave them a talk about the songs and cross examined them afterwards as to what they know and in this way got a lot of splendid songs. One of the best days I have had for a long time and I must have taken down over 30 songs! I am beginning a bad cold in my chest, probably the result of the dance on Tuesday and the wet feet I got going to it. Got a mustard plaster to put on in bed.
O. [Matthy Groves] Sung by MRS. LUCINDY PRATT at Hindman, Knott Co., Ky., Sept. 20, 1917
Hexatonic (no 6th).
Lie down lie down, little Matthy Groves,
Lie down and keep me warm,
It was my uncle's horn you heard
A-herding the sheep to the barn, barn,
A-herding the sheep to the barn.