Sow 'Em On The Mountain: A Song History
The Carter Family recorded “Sow ’Em on the Mountain” for Victor in Memphis on November 25, 1930, with Ralph Peer supervising the session.[1] The discography of the session lists A. P. Carter on bass vocal, Sara Carter singing alto and playing autoharp, and Maybelle Carter on steel guitar.[1] The disc label credits A. P. as arranger and carries the subtitle “Reap ’Em in the Valley.”[1] Victor released the second take on its 23585, and the same master later appeared on Bluebird and Montgomery Ward pressings and on a Bear Family CD reissue.[1]
Winslow Homer, The Sower, wood engraving, 1878. A farmer sowing a ploughed field, shown for the title; the engraving has no connection to the song.
Guy Logsdon and Jeff Place, annotating Smithsonian Folkways’ Woody Guthrie: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 2, call it a Southern white gospel song and note that it was not recorded again until the Coon Creek Girls did so in 1938, judging that it “apparently was not widely known.”[2] Their notes date the Folkways version to April 19, 1944, one of the rare times Woody Guthrie sang harmony to Cisco Houston, taking the bass part while Houston sang lead and played guitar.[2] That take, titled “Sowing on the Mountain,” first came out on the 1951 Folkways compilation Lonesome Valley: A Collection of American Folk Music.[3] Woody Guthrie Publications today presents the song with a credit to Guthrie for adapting the words and music.[4]
For dulcimer players, Elwood Donnelly arranges it in DAD tuning in Such Singing You Will Hear, his gathering of 35 Carter Family songs with instructions and notes for mountain dulcimer, backup and voice, offered on DulcimerDownloads by Aubrey Atwater.[5]
Sources
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-64718. Sow 'em on the mountain / Carter Family".
- Smithsonian Folkways: "Woody Guthrie: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 2" (liner notes by Guy Logsdon and Jeff Place).
- Smithsonian Folkways: "Lonesome Valley: A Collection of American Folk Music".
- Woody Guthrie Publications: "Sowing on the Mountain".
- Aubrey Atwater: "Elwood Donnelly, Such Singing You Will Hear: 35 Songs Of The Carter Family".
- Image: Winslow Homer, The Sower, wood engraving, 1878. The Cleveland Museum of Art.