The Drowsy Sleeper- Mary Lomax (GA) pre1968; Recorded 2007
[The date she learned the song is unknown but much earlier than the 2007 recording. The ballad came from her father, Lemuel Uriah Payne (1884–1968) as written from her brother's MSS. From the album Art of Field Recording, Volume 1. Mary Lomax is a fine traditional singer from Georgia. Art Rosenbaum, has a new book, "The Mary Lomax Ballad Book: America's Great 21st Century Traditional Singer," with Bonnie Loggins, Casey Loggins, Pashie Towery, and Roy Tench (Fiddle); 2 CDs with Performances; 59 Songs, Ballads, and Fiddle Tunes; and 20 Texts Without Tunes; Collected And Annotated With Text and Annotations By Art Rosenbaum; with archival family photographs and photographs by Margo Newmark Rosenbaum; Foreword by Alice Gerrard; Edited by Ed Cray; Published by CAMSCO Music (dick greenhaus); 210 + xviii pp; copyright 2013 by Art Rosenbaum.
R. Matteson 2016]
Notes from the book: Lemuel Uriah Payne (1884–1968) farmed other people’s land in the foothills of the Blue Ridge in northern Georgia for most of the first half of the twentieth century. He and his wife Tressie produced 10 offspring, and he supplemented the sometimes meager income generated by tenant farming with such traditional practices as homemade whiskey production. He also sang. In fact, his repertoire of material was both extensive and expansive. It consisted of many of the pieces that have come to be associated with traditional singers from the southern Appalachians, including several Child ballads as well as a number of narrative songs cataloged by G. Malcolm Laws. Moreover, he knew complete, often lengthy versions of many of these ballads, most of which he had probably acquired from hearing them performed by vocalists in the region in the late nineteenth century. Bunyon Payne attempted to preserve his father’s repertoire by writing down the words of many of his songs, and Lemuel Payne’s daughter Mary Lomax converted her brother’s manuscript into type to produce what has conventionally been called a “ballet book” (though she does not use that term), from which she and her sister Bonnie Loggins have sung what has become a family tradition into the twenty-first century. The typescript also includes material that appeals to Lomax but does not appear to have come from her father.
Art Rosenbaum’s interest in Mary Lomax and her sister Bonnie Loggins sprang not from music, but through a shared connection to the visual arts. In the early 2000s, Cleveland, Georgia folk art dealer Barbara C. Brogdon introduced Rosenbaum to the self-taught artist Bonnie Loggins. Rosenbaum was immediately captivated; not only by Bonnie’s visual artistry, but also intrigued by the traditional folk songs Bonnie had inherited from her father.
Bonnie dispensed these tunes and ballads, as well as her own inventive songs and poems, often and with great pleasure. It was during a visit with Bonnie in 2006 that Rosenbaum met the painter and muralist’s sister, Mary, who had taken on the responsibility of documenting her father’s folk songs and ballads.
Unlike Bonnie, whose illiteracy restricted her repertoire to childhood memory, Mary referred to typewritten texts to perform her father’s ballads. The sister’s interest in their father’s songs and tunes has resulted in one of the most comprehensive collections of music from the Southern Appalachians, which Art Rosenbaum has chronicled with care.
The Drowsy Sleeper- Sung by Mary Lomax of Northern Georgia, 2007; taken from her father's song collection before 1968.
Wake up, wake up, you drowsy sleeper,
Wake up, wake up for it is almost day,
How ca n you bear sleep and slumber
When your true love is going away.
Oh don't you see those dark cloud rising,
They're rising in a billowy dome.
I think we'll have some fair weather,
When these dark clouds are overblown[1].
True love, true love, go ask your father,
If my bride you ever can be
If he says, No, come quick and tell me,
And I'll never more will trouble thee.
There is no use in asking father,
He's in his room a-taking a rest.
And in his hand is a loaded weapon,
To kill the one that I love best.
True love, true love, go ask your mother,
If my bride you ever can be;
If she says, No, come quick and tell me,
And I nevermore will trouble thee.
There is no use in asking mother,
She combing down her golden hair,
So you go away and court some other
And whisper softly in her ear.
I will not go and court another,
Because my love for you is true.
I never grieved or yet deceived you,[2]
And now my heart is broke for you.
I'm going away to the wild goose country[3]
I'll stay months or I'll stay for years
And all I'll eat will be of sorrow
And all I'll drink will be of tears.
1. this stanza is very rare, see Rawn 1914.
2. This line is rare and compares to the Scotch "I Will Put my Ship" lines which are a defense against accusations "to his dispraise" in a letter (instead of a dagger) held by the father.
3. Also rare- found in Alabama