Down In The Valley: A Song History

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"Down in the Valley" is an anonymous American love lyric of parting, courtship and prison, which the Traditional Ballad Index reports from the Appalachian, Midwestern, Southeastern and Southern states; the earliest date the Index gives for it is 1909, citing a Missouri Folk-Lore Society collection.[1] The title "Birmingham Jail" was common on early records, and the Index's editors note that while some regard "Birmingham Jail" as a separate song, it is hard to tell apart from this one; they also warn that an unrelated "Birmingham Jail" exists.[1] On 10 November 1927 in Atlanta, the duo of Tom Darby (guitar) and Jimmie Tarlton (steel guitar) recorded "Birmingham Jail" for Columbia, which issued it as 15212-D.[2] The Index also lists the pair's "Birmingham Jail - No. 2" (recorded 1928) and "New Birmingham Jail" (issued 1930) as using the same tune.[1]

Jasper Cropsey painting of a broad green river valley seen from a hillside with a tall tree and grazing cattle

Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Valley of Wyoming, oil on canvas, 1865. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A Pennsylvania valley, shown for atmosphere; it has no connection to the song.

In 1941 John and Alan Lomax set the tune beside "Home on the Range" and "The Red River Valley" as one of the most familiar American folk melodies, credited radio and commercial records with spreading it, and called it the "best known of all jailhouse songs."[3] They counted "Twenty-one Years" among the many parodies it had inspired, and printed a version sung with guitar by George W. Smith, a Black prisoner, recorded in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1934.[3]

In a 1949 letter to the New York Times, Kurt Weill recalled that in 1945 the critic Olin Downes, approached by businessman Charles McArthur, had taken up the idea of radio dramas built on folk tunes, and that Arnold Sundgaard found a story in this song's verses; sponsors shied away from the radio version, so Weill expanded it for a university stage.[4][5] The resulting one-act folk opera, about 35 minutes long, with a chorus singing "Down in the Valley" at its opening and close, premiered at Indiana University in Bloomington on 15 July 1948 and was televised by NBC in 1950.[6] College and amateur groups gave about 80 performances in its first year, and the composer and writer Mark N. Grant judges it the most frequently performed of Weill's American theater works.[5]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Down in the Valley".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UCSB): "Columbia matrix W145202. Birmingham Jail / Darby & Tarlton".
  3. Internet Archive: "Our Singing Country: A Second Volume of American Ballads and Folk Songs" (John A. and Alan Lomax, Macmillan, 1941).
  4. Kurt Weill Foundation for Music: "More Light on 'Valley'" (Kurt Weill, letter to the New York Times, 1949).
  5. Kurt Weill Foundation for Music (Mark N. Grant): "Down in the Valley: An Appreciation".
  6. Kurt Weill Foundation for Music: "Down in the Valley (1948)".