East Virginia: A Song History

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"East Virginia" is a traditional Appalachian song of lost love, also found under titles such as "East Virginia Blues," "Old Virginny" and "Dark Holler Blues."[1][2] Its singer, born in East Virginia, has gone to North Carolina and met a young woman there, only to mourn that her parents will marry her to someone else.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index dates the earliest text to Cecil Sharp's collecting in 1917, and Sharp published versions under the title "In Old Virginny."[1] Folk song indexes file "East Virginia" and "East Virginia Blues" together as one song, Roud 3396.[1][2]

Photograph of a nineteenth-century banjo with a round head and a wooden neck

Banjo, wood, parchment, metal, ca. 1870–1910. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

Buell Kazee recorded it for Brunswick in 1927, and that performance later appeared on the third volume of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music (Folkways, 1952).[1][3] Clarence Ashley recorded it as "Dark Holler Blues" for Columbia in 1929 and, with Gwen Foster, as "East Virginia Blues" in 1933, and the Carter Family's "The East Virginia Blues" appeared on Bluebird in 1934.[1] Jean Ritchie, who learned it from her father, recorded it as "Old Virginny" in 1952.[2]

The folk revival carried the song further: Pete Seeger sang it in concert in 1959, Joan Baez included it on her 1960 debut album for Vanguard, and Doc Watson and the New Lost City Ramblers also recorded it.[1][2] Singers have continued to take it up, among them Elizabeth LaPrelle in 2007 and Martin Simpson, who sang it as "East Kentucky" in 2017.[2] Jim Miller includes it, as "East Virginia Blues," in 15 Tunes In The Public Domain Recorded By The Carter Family, Volume 1, a book of solo mountain dulcimer arrangements with tablature, lyrics and chords, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]

Our book that contains the song "East Virginia"

Sources

  1. Traditional Ballad Index: "East Virginia (Dark Hollow)".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "East Virginia".
  3. Mainly Norfolk: "Anthology of American Folk Music".
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Jim Miller, 15 Tunes In The Public Domain Recorded By The Carter Family, Volume 1".
  5. Image: Banjo, wood, parchment, metal, ca. 1870–1910. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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