Handsome Molly: A Song History

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"Handsome Molly" is an Appalachian love song whose singer stays devoted to a Molly who has not stayed true to him; the Traditional Ballad Index lists its author as unknown.[1] The Index's earliest date is 1918, from Cecil Sharp's Appalachian collecting, where a text appeared under the title "The Irish Girl," and an Index editor notes that its words closely match the Grayson and Whitter record made about nine years later, and that Sharp found it in the part of Virginia Whitter came from.[1] One Index editor holds that it belongs with "Farewell Ballymoney" and "Loving Hannah," sharing several verses, the whole plot and some melodic likeness, while another would treat it as a separate song; the Index lists it on its own because it has circulated independently, with the versions that editor hears seeming to stem from the Grayson and Whitter record.[1] Mainly Norfolk gathers "Handsome Molly," "Loving Hannah" and related songs on one page under Roud 454, and quotes Jean Ritchie recalling that 1960s banjo players sang "Handsome Molly" as a newer form of the "Loving Hannah" sung by men in her family.[2]

Small round tintype portrait of a young woman in a dark dress

Portrait of a Young Woman, tintype, c. 1855–60. An unidentified sitter, shown for the song's subject.

G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter recorded it for Victor in Atlanta on October 18, 1927, with Grayson singing and fiddling, Whitter on guitar and Ralph Peer supervising, and it was issued as Victor 21189.[3] The Ballad Index also lists a 1927 issue on Gennett and Champion.[1] The Wilkes Heritage Museum, whose Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame includes the pair, says they met at a fiddlers' convention in Mountain City, Tennessee, in 1927 and that their partnership lasted about three years.[4] Folk-revival recordings followed: according to Mainly Norfolk and the album notes it reprints, Doc Watson sang Grayson's version on the Folkways album Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's, Frank Proffitt recorded the song on a 1962 Folk-Legacy album, and Mike Seeger included it on his 1962 Old Time Country Music.[2]

It is one of the tunes in Lorinda Jones's Traditional Playing Of The Mountain Dulcimer, published by Fingers Of Steel, which teaches the instrument with a short introduction and arrangements in DAA tuning, plus MP3 tracks for learning by ear.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Handsome Molly"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Handsome Molly".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "Meeting Is a Pleasure / Courting Is a Pleasure / Handsome Molly / Loving Hannah".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-40302. Handsome Molly / Grayson and Whitter".
  4. Wilkes Heritage Museum: "Grayson and Whitter".
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Lorinda Jones, Traditional Playing Of The Mountain Dulcimer".
  6. Image: Portrait of a Young Woman, tintype, c. 1855–60. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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