My Home's Across The Blue Ridge Mountains: A Song History

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This farewell song, in which the singer announces a return home to North Carolina over the mountains, is of unknown authorship; the Traditional Ballad Index gives its earliest date as 1909, citing the Journal of American Folklore, and finds it in the Appalachians and the Southeast.[1] Folk-song collections have printed it under several titles, among them "I'm Goin' Back to North Carolina" and "My Home's Across the Smoky Mountains," the latter in the Frank C. Brown collection of North Carolina folklore and in Bascom Lamar Lunsford's repertoire.[1]

Watercolor of a stream flowing beneath a natural rock arch between forested cliffs

Pavel Petrovich Svinin, Natural Bridge, Virginia (Copy after an Engraving in François Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America, 1787), watercolor and gouache on white laid paper, 1811–ca. 1813. A Virginia mountain scene, shown for its setting; it has no connection to the song.

Kelly Harrell recorded it as "I'm Going Back to North Carolina" for OKeh in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 25, 1925, with Henry Whitter on guitar and harmonica.[2] The Carolina Tar Heels (Dock Walsh, Garley Foster and Clarence Ashley) recorded it under the now-familiar title in Camden, New Jersey, on April 3, 1929, for Victor, whose label credited Thomas Clarence Ashley as composer.[3] The Carter Family recorded it for Decca in New York on June 18, 1937, issued on Decca 5532; the Ballad Index dates that release to 1938 and also lists recordings by Arthur Smith (1937) and the Delmore Brothers (1939).[4][1]

During the folk revival, Ashley, Foster, Walsh and Doc Watson are credited together on a performance of it now on Smithsonian Folkways' The Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley 1960-1962, which collects the earlier Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's albums.[5] Lorinda Jones includes it in Traditional Playing Of The Mountain Dulcimer, a book of 22 traditional songs in DAA tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[6]

Our books that contain the song "My Home's Across The Blue Ridge Mountains"

Sources

  1. Traditional Ballad Index: "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "OKeh matrix 9276. I'm going back to North Carolina / Kelly Harrell".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-51067. My home's across the Blue Ridge Mountains / Carolina Tar Heels".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Decca matrix 62301. My home's across the Blue Ridge mountains / Carter Family".
  5. Smithsonian Folkways: "The Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley 1960-1962".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Lorinda Jones, Traditional Playing Of The Mountain Dulcimer".
  7. Image: Pavel Petrovich Svinin, Natural Bridge, Virginia (Copy after an Engraving in François Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America, 1787), watercolor and gouache on white laid paper, 1811–ca. 1813. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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