From the recording Back to Laurel Hill: Pennsylvania and West Virginia Folk Songs from the Bayard Collection, Vol. I
Back to Laurel Hill
Pennsylvania and West Virginia Folk Songs from the Bayard Collection: Volume 1
For more information about the music on Back to Laurel Hill and Dearest Home’s Bayard Project, please visit www.dearesthomeband.com. Dearest Home plans additional albums from the Bayard Collection, songbooks, and more. Contacts info@dearesthomeband.com to book the band for concerts, workshops and other events.
Samuel Preston Bayard, 1908-1997, was an internationally acclaimed folklorist. He collected songs, ballads, spirituals, and fiddle and fife tunes, 1928-1963, mostly from southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia, in Northern and North Central Appalachia. Although he published two volumes of tunes, Hill Country Tunes and Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife, he died before The Samuel Bayard Folk Song Collection, comprising over 500 separate songs, could be brought to publication. Professor Bayard, who was born in Pittsburgh, and who had family ties to Greene and Westmoreland Counties, taught at the Pennsylvania State University, Centre County, 1945-1973. This album includes a few of the songs, ballads, and spirituals that Beth continues to research through the Penn State libraries and beyond.
The Roving Gambler, from Charles Scott Brink, 1861-1950, near Smicksburg, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, August 12, 1948. Mr. Brink, a retired farmer, was a wonderful singer who had played the fiddle too. Mr. Brink’s songs relate to both northern and southern American traditions, many with strong ties to Great Britain and Ireland.
Lyrics
I am a roving gambler, I rove from town to town;
Wherever I see a deck of cards so willingly I set down,
So willingly I sat down, so willingly I sat down,
Wherever I see a deck of cards so willingly I sat [set] down.
It’s on my way of rambling I came to London town;
And there I saw a deck of cards, so willingly I sat [set] down,
So willingly I sat down, so willingly I sat down,
It’s there I saw a deck of cards so willingly I sat down.
Oh Mother, dearest Mother, don’t you love that gambling man?
[If you never see me come back again, just do the best you can,
Just do the best you can, just do the best you can,
If you never see me come back again, just do the best you can.]
Oh daughter, dear daughter, what makes you talk so,
For to fall in love with a gambling man and with a gambler go,
And with a gambler go, and with a gambler go,
For to fall in love with a gambling man and with a gambler go?
I would not marry a farmer that’s always in the dirt;
I would rather marry the gambling man that wears a lily-white shirt,
That wears a lily-white shirt, that wears a lily-white shirt,
I would rather my the gambling man that wears a lily-white shirt.
I would not marry a miner, that’s always in the coal;
I’d rather marry the gambling man, that carries the lumps of gold,
That carries the lumps of gold, that carries the lumps of gold,
I would rather marry the gambling man that carries the lumps of gold.
His pockets lined with silver, and the [noreens?] in his hand,
The love I have for the gambling man no human tongue can tell,
No human tongue can tell, no human tongue can tell,
The love I have for the gambling man no human tongue can tell.