Prodigal Son: A Song History

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The parable of the lost son in Luke 15 lies behind a number of hymns and other songs, and the Traditional Ballad Index cautions against mixing up pieces that share this title.[1] It separates the Appalachian "Prodigal Son" from the Rev. Robert Wilkins song "That's No Way to Get Along," which the Rolling Stones recorded as "Prodigal Son," and judges that the "Prodigal Son" in the Missouri Harmony is apparently a different piece as well.[1] The Index adds that the phrase "prodigal son" appears nowhere in the Bible.[1]

Engraving of the Prodigal Son kneeling in prayer among pigs at a trough in a farmyard

Albrecht Dürer, The Prodigal Son, engraving, ca. 1496. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject.

In the Index's description the song retells the parable, with a chorus in which the penitent son resolves to go back to his father; the entry gives it Roud number 4489, lists only Dock Boggs's recording, and cites a single printed text indirectly based on his version.[1] Boggs (1898–1971), a Virginia banjo player, recorded eight songs for Brunswick in 1927 and four in 1929 for Lonesome Ace, a one-man label that folded that same year; he spent more than forty years in the coal mines, and Mike Seeger found him at his home in Norton, Virginia, in June 1963.[2] The notes to Smithsonian Folkways' set of his 1963–1968 recordings date his "Prodigal Son" to 14 December 1963 and say he got it about 1930 from his brother-in-law Lee Hunsucker.[2] Hunsucker, a Holiness preacher married to Boggs's sister Laura, taught Boggs many of the sacred songs in his repertory.[2]

Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly sang "Prodigal Son" on their live album And Then I'm Going Home, crediting it to the singing of Rick Lee and Dock Boggs, and the chorus in their published notes is the one the Index gives.[1][3] Atwater's songbook Song By Song, Volume I lists "The Prodigal Son" in its old-time banjo section, under C minor tuning, though the table of contents does not say whose version it is.[4] Don Pedi's catalog lists "Prodigal Son" in his book Old-Time Sacred Music for Mountain Dulcimer and "The Prodigal Son" as a vocal with dulcimer on his album Walk With Me, but none of the sources consulted here says whether his settings follow the Boggs song.[5]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Prodigal Son (I)".
  2. Smithsonian Folkways: "Dock Boggs: His Folkways Years 1963–1968" (booklet, notes by Barry O'Connell and Mike Seeger).
  3. Atwater~Donnelly: "And Then I'm Going Home: Lyrics & Notes".
  4. Atwater~Donnelly: "Song By Song, Volume I: Table of Contents".
  5. Don Pedi: "DVD, CD Recordings and Books by Don Pedi" (catalog).