Winding Stream: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

The Carter Family recorded "The Winding Stream" for Victor in Camden, New Jersey, on October 13, 1932, with Ralph Peer supervising the session.[1] The Discography of American Historical Recordings lists Sara Carter on alto vocal and autoharp, Maybelle Carter on soprano vocal and guitar, and A. P. Carter on bass vocal.[1] The side came out on Victor 23807, and Montgomery Ward also issued it from the Victor master as M-7443, backed with "Weary Prodigal Son."[1][2] RCA Victor later put it on the long-playing album LPM-2772, next to such earlier Carter sides as "My Clinch Mountain Home."[3]

Round ink painting on silk of gnarled pine trees above a stream crossed by a small bridge

Luo Zhichuan, Ramblers over a Winding Stream, album leaf, ink on silk, before 1330. Shown for its title; it has no connection to the song.

The Victor ledgers name A. P. Carter alone, and they name him as the song's adapter.[1] The discography cites Meade for the view that the text and subject suggest a work from the middle of the nineteenth century, and it also credits Meade for an alternate title, "Give to Me a Winding Stream."[1] None of the sources consulted here names the earlier song or its writer.[1]

Rosanne Cash sang it on The Unbroken Circle: The Musical Heritage of the Carter Family, a various-artists album that John Carter Cash produced for Dualtone in 2004.[4] The Winding Stream is also the title of a documentary by Beth Harrington about the Carter Family and the musical dynasty that grew from it.[5][6] Sources differ on its year: Film at Lincoln Center lists it as a 2014 film, while a review of its soundtrack album calls it a 2015 documentary.[5][6] According to that review, Cash's version of the song closes the soundtrack album.[6] Elwood Donnelly includes it, in DAD tuning, in Such Singing You Will Hear: 35 Songs Of The Carter Family, which its listing calls "a book of instructions and notes for mountain dulcimer, backup and voice."[7]

Our book that contains the song "Winding Stream"

Sources

  1. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BS-59025. The winding stream / Carter Family".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Montgomery Ward M-7443 (10-in.)".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "RCA Victor LPM-2772 (12-in. long-playing)".
  4. Gunnison Library District (Marmot Library Network) catalog: "The unbroken circle: the musical heritage of the Carter family".
  5. Film at Lincoln Center: "The Winding Stream".
  6. Country Standard Time: "Various Artists - The Winding Stream".
  7. Elwood Donnelly: "Such Singing You Will Hear: 35 Songs Of The Carter Family".
  8. Image: Luo Zhichuan, Ramblers over a Winding Stream, album leaf, ink on silk, before 1330. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song