Show #17: JOHN COHEN
of the New Lost City Ramblers
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MEL BERNAM (ANNOUNCER): Here is Radio New York - Folk Music Worldwide. A program devoted to the best in folk music, throughout the world. Showcasing the top performers and authorities in the field. Now your host for Folk Music Worldwide, Alan Wasser.

ALAN WASSER (HOST): Hello again, and welcome to Folk Music Worldwide. Today, we have with us one member of a well-known folk-music group, the New Lost City Ramblers. In our studios with us is John Cohen.

For those of you who may not have heard the New Lost City Ramblers music, let me first play a song called "I'll Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms."

[Song Performance: "I'll Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms", the New Lost City Ramblers]

Lyrics:

I ain't gonna work on the railroad,
No, I ain't gonna work on the farm,
I'll lay around this shack 'til the mail train comes back,
Then I'll roll in my sweet baby's arms.

Roll in my sweet baby's arms,
Roll in my sweet baby's arms,
Lay around this shack 'til the mail train comes back,
Then I'll roll in my sweet baby's arms.

Can't see what's the matter with my own true love,
She done quit writing me,
She must think I don't love her like I used to,
Ain't that a foolish idea.

Sometimes there's change in the ocean;
Something there's change in the sea;
Sometimes there's change in my own true love;
But there's never no change in me.

Mama's a ginger-cake baker;
Sister can weave and can spin;
Dad's got an interest in that old cotton mill,
Just watch that old money roll in.

They tell me that your parents do not like me;
They have drove me away from your door;
If I had all my time to do over,
I would never go there anymore.

Where was you last Friday night,
While I was locked up in jail;
Walking the streets with another man,
Wouldn't even go my bail.

Roll in my sweet baby's arms,
Roll in my sweet baby's arms,
Lay around the shack 'til the mail train comes back,
Then I'll roll in my sweet baby's arms.

(end of music)

ALAN: "I'll Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms" done by the New Lost City Ramblers. John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers, how on earth did your group get that name?

JOHN COHEN, (GUEST): Well, it's something we sort of put together ourselves. And when we started, we didn't have any plans of folk music being a business or a lasting as long as it has, I mean folk music in the commercial sense of singing and doing concerts.

We always sang for fun before we got together, and we were three boys who are all born in New York City, although living in different places and doing different things. And we had to get a name for our music.

And we play old time music, old music from the South. And we choose our music mostly from that period when the home folk music was first put on records. And so, you couldn't really say it's hillbilly or it's commercial or it's home folk music, it's folk music.

Now, the name "New Lost City Ramblers" was a way that we could present ourselves full of ambiguities because we're city boys singing country music, and we're in the present, and that's new.

But the music is old. And so new would make you think, "Was there an old group with a name like this?" And City is city, of course, and Lost is my commentary on the whole affair. And Rambling is I guess what I'm doing now.

ALAN: You mean, there never was a group, the Lost City Ramblers or the Old Lost City Ramblers?

JOHN COHEN: No, but it makes people think that there was, and there were lots of string bands in the early days that had crazy names like that which gave some humorous and yet definitive look at themselves.

ALAN: You're shattering my illusions. I'd always visualized some city that had been lost and some singing group named itself after the Lost City. And then you named yourself after the singing group that, well, yeah...

JOHN COHEN: Well, from Georgia has been Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers and there's been Uncle Dave Macon And His Fruit Jar Drinkers. And there's been the Corn Shuckers and the North Carolina Ramblers.

So this is the kind of...as a matter of fact, there was a group of fiddlers, and they called themselves Dr. Smith's Champion Horse Hair Pullers, of course, referring to the bough, but, okay.

ALAN: Yeah, I think before we get any more confused with the names of these groups, I think maybe we better get back to some nice, uncomplicated music. How about Black Jack David?

JOHN COHEN: Yeah, that's a pretty song and it comes from The Carter Family. Now, it's a very old ballad, the story of Black Jack David. It's an English tradition for many, many years, and we did it like The Carter Family it. They recorded it in 1927 and '28, up to 1930 or '40. And they just did it with guitars and an autoharp. So here we go.

[Song Performance: "Black Jack David", the New Lost City Ramblers]

Lyrics:

Black Jack David come riding through the woods.
And he sang so loud and gaily,
Made the hills around him ring.
And he charmed the heart of a lady,
And he charmed the heart of a lady.

How old are you my pretty little miss?
How old are you my honey?
She answered him with a silly smile,
I'll be 16 next Sunday.
be 16 next Sunday.

Come go with me my pretty little miss,
Come go with me my honey,
I'll take you across the deep blue sea,
Where you never shall want for money.
You never shall want for money.

She pulled off her high-heeled shoes.
They were made of Spanish leather,
She put on those low-heeled shoes,
And they both rode off together.
They both rode off together.

Last night I lay on a warm feather bed,
Beside my husband and baby.
But tonight I lay on the cold, cold ground
By the side of Black Jack David.
By the side of Black Jack David.

(end of music)

ALAN: "Black Jack Davey" as done by the New Lost City Ramblers. That's originally English, isn't it John?

JOHN COHEN: Oh yeah, it's a very old song but it's still alive today. This version we sang was sort of how it was put together by The Carter Family in the 1930s and it's been on the hit parade recently, I think, a version of it at least as The Whistling Gypsy or The Gypsy Rover, which is a rewrite of that song.

ALAN: Did you know The Carter Family? Did you ever meet them or?

JOHN COHEN: Well, I had never met them when we recorded this, but some of them are still alive now...well, one of them is retired, and one of them is very active in country music and the Grand Ole Opry, that's Maybelle Carter. And she has been very influential in bringing the guitar into American music.

So before The Carter Family and before 1927, there were very few guitars in American folk music. It's a fallacy that the guitar was the instrument that went west with the pioneers. It was the banjo and the fiddle which were the old instruments.

ALAN: Which instruments do you use?

JOHN COHEN: Well, I use the banjo and I use the guitar. And I use a little bit of the fiddle and the mandolin, and we also in the band have an autoharp and a dobro which was a Hawaiian guitar. And a little bit of harmonica sometimes.

ALAN: You all play each of them or...

JOHN COHEN: Oh, we all play a lot of them. I wouldn't say we all play all.

ALAN: Incidentally, it might be an idea at this time to say something about the rest of the group besides yourself.

JOHN COHEN: Oh, of course, there's three members who were working until the Lost City Ramblers for five... The first four years it consisted of Mike Seeger who is a half-brother to Pete Seeger. And Tom Paley who is a mathematician who has now left the group, and he's wandering around in Stockholm somewhere, I believe.

If anyone sees him, tell him to tune up his guitar and say hello from John Cohen. And then the third member is myself now and we've gotten a replacement for Tom, a boy named Tracy Schwarz who is an excellent fiddler, and he also was born in New York and he really plays the fiddle very well and sings.

ALAN: Now, I see on your album Country Blues, that's more your song than the rest of the group, isn't it?

JOHN COHEN: Well, we don't always sing as a group. We sometimes sit down and have a duet or just somebody does a solo. Because we like to present a huge and a large range of what does go on, there is all kinds of things.

Country Blues is more of a home song. Well, it's a kind of song someone would sing around their house rather than on a stage show. And yet, that's one of those things. When it takes three people to get together like in Black Jack David, and a family would do that.

But for an individual who had the blues, but it's the white blues more or less. It's back in the mountains. It's used the old modal style of tuning the banjo into these, a different kind of a chord, a different kind of a sound. And the singing might sound awful to some ears, but we're getting used to it.

We get to like it very much, this modal sound. It's not a major chord and it's not a minor chord. It's just its own distinctive scale. So here's the Country Blues.

[Song Performance: "The Country Blues", John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers]

Lyrics:

Come all you old-time people,
While I have money for to spend.
Tomorrow may be another day,
And haven't got no money or no friend.

When I had plenty of money, good people,
I had friends come from all around.
But as soon as my pocketbook was empty,
Not a friend on earth could be found.

Well, the last time I seen my woman, good people,
Had a wine glass in her hand.
She's drinkin' down her troubles,
With some low-down sorry old man.

And my papa told me a-plenty, good people,
And my mamma, she told me more.
Said if I didn't quit my rowdy ways,
Having trouble at my door.

Well, if I had listened to my mama, good people,
Then I would not have been here today.
But shootin' and gambling and drinking,
At home, I could not stand.

All around this old jailhouse, many good people,
Forty dollars won't pay my fine.
Corn liquor has surrounded my body, poor boy,
Pretty women are troublin' my mind.

Give me cornbread when I'm hungry, good people,
Corn whiskey when I'm dry.
Pretty women standing around me,
Sweet heaven when I die.

Go dig a hole in the meadow, good people,
Dig a hole in the cold, cold ground.
Come around, all you good people,
And see this old rounder go down.

When I am dead and buried, good people,
And my pale face is turned to the sun.
You can come around and mourn, little woman,
And think on the way you have done.

(end of music)

ALAN: "Country Blues" as done by John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers. We'll be talking to John Cohen again in a moment. And hear some more New Lost City Ramblers music right after this message.

(pause for commercial)

All right. This is Alan Wasser again back at Folk Music Worldwide. And has apparently become my custom, let me just take a moment here and ask you all to send in letters, cards, or just mention us in a letter to any other show. This is the only way we have of finding out who's listening, what you like to hear, what you want to hear.

If you would like a QSL card, an acknowledgment that you've picked up Radio New York Worldwide, just mention Folk Music Worldwide and that you heard the New Lost City Ramblers show or some reasonable approximation of that.

And you can get a QSL card. In addition, let me mention again an idea that I came up with a week or two ago about the idea of either sending in tapes that you can either make yourself or collect yourself from your own area, Folk Music around your home.

I'm going to put together a whole show of these tapes and play them on the air. I can't give you anything besides the exposure of letting most of the world hear your folk music, but I think it would be an awfully interesting show.

Make sure they're single-track tapes though, if you've got a double track or a four-track machine, take a blank wheel of tape and only record once over it. We'd like seven and a half inches per second but it doesn't have to be that, just gives us best quality.

And send them into me, Alan Wasser at Folk Music Worldwide, Radio New York Worldwide, New York City 19 USA. But even if you haven't got tapes, please send us in a card or a letter mentioning that you heard the show.

JOHN COHEN: While you were talking about that idea of sending in tapes, tapes have become a very important way of collecting music and getting the old songs down and recorded for other people to hear it. This folk music is always changing, I guess the whole range of music you've had on here has revealed that. And sometimes, tape recording is invaluable for holding onto some of the old ones.

Now, I was just down south with my wife down in North Carolina recording some old ballad singers and we've heard some wonderful music. A man, 55 years old and he's very vigorous and he sings the very old traditional ballads.

From that collecting trip, then we drove up to Ohio and did a folk festival, sort of sang a few songs there on the folk festival. And then from there, well we've come back to New York and we're putting on a concert tonight of a lady from Arkansas who's come all the way up and a man from Southern Virginia, banjo player and a ballad singer.

And we're putting on a concert for the Friends of Old Time Music. And then tomorrow, I guess I have to take off and drive up to Toronto for a little bit of work in a club there and then come back. I think we're flying to El Paso for a concert after that. So it's very hectic but it's wonderful how this music travels now.

ALAN: Well, speaking of hectic things, it's going to have to be hectic here if we're going to get in any more music.

JOHN COHEN: Oh, here's Mike Seeger singing "The Knick Knack song" just about a little bit of marital blitz. And Tom Paley and myself are making wise cracks in the background.

[Song Performance: "The Knick Knack Song", Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers]

Lyrics:

I married me a wife on the eighth of June,
To risselty-risselty row, row, row.
I took her home by the light of the moon,
To risselty-risselty, rustico-quality,
Hickety-hackety, old John Dobbison,
Nickety-nackety now, now, now.

I thought this was a knick knack party,
Not a wrestling match.
Talking about getting a wife now,
I couldn't even get one on the fourth of July.
That's Independence Day.

I sent her out to milk the old cow,
To risselty-risselty row, row, row.
She set right down; she milked the old sow,
To risselty-risselty, rustico-quality,
Hickety-hackety, old John Dobbison,
Nickety-nackety now, now, now.

I sure hate to milk cows.
Don't try horses.
Our cow gave no milk so we had to sell him.

She churned our butter in dad's old boot,
To risselty-risselty row, row, row.
And for her dasher she used her foot,
To risselty-risselty, rustico-quality,
Hickety-hackety, old John Dobbison,
Nickety-nackety now, now, now.

I used to always go up on the shelf and get jam.
Yeah, I used to go up there to steal them pumpkin pies.
Well, that's better than dad's boots.

She swept her floor but once a year,
To risselty-risselty row, row, row.
And for her broom she used a chair,
To risselty-risselty, rustico-quality,
Hickety-hackety, old John Dobbison,
Nickety-nackety now, now, now.

And that's sayin' a lot, ain't it, Tom?
Well, I'll say it is.

She keeps her shoes on the pantry shelf,
To risselty-risselty row, row, row.
If you want any more you can sing it yourself,
To risselty-risselty, rustico-quality,
Hickety-hackety, old John Dobbison,
Nickety-nackety now, now, now.

Well, I don't think you have to sing anymore, after that.
I thought this was a knick knack party.
Sounds like a marriage to me.
Something like that fatal wedding.

To risselty-risselty, rustico-quality,
Hickety-hackety, old John Dobbison,
Nickety-nackety now, now, now.

(end of music)

ALAN: "The Knick Knack Song" as done by the New Lost City Ramblers. John Cohen, we're way out of time. Any chance of your coming in again some other time and doing another show with us?

JOHN COHEN: Well, I think in a few weeks, the boys will be in town, all three of us, and I'll try and get them up here if it would be okay.

ALAN: Oh, it'd be wonderful. I'd love to have all three of you come in. We'll do another show with the New Lost City Ramblers. And if our listeners will write in quickly, I'll show you the letters we get, when you come back in again. Thank you very much, John Cohen.

JOHN COHEN: Thank you very much.

MEL BERNAM (ANNOUNCER): This has been Folk Music Worldwide. Devoted to the best in folk music throughout the world, and spotlighting top performers and authorities in the field. If you have any suggestions, requests, or comments, why not write into Folk Music Worldwide, Radio New York WRUL, New York City 19 USA.

This has been a Music Worldwide presentation of Radio New York Worldwide.

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