You've Been That Friend To Me: A Song History

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William Shakespeare Hays (1837–1907) lived all his life in Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked as a river captain and a newspaper writer and turned out hundreds of songs.[1] A Library of Congress essay groups him with other Civil War–period contemporaries of Stephen Foster who kept writing into the 1870s, when “The Little Old Cabin in the Lane” became an enduring hit for him.[2] The Library holds a copy of his “You’ve Been a Friend to Me” that credits both words and music to Hays and is catalogued as a secular chorus for four mixed voices with piano.[3] That copy is an 1879 Boston printing by Oliver Ditson & Co.; its cover names C. H. Ditson & Co. of New York as successors to J. L. Peters, and its first page of music carries an 1867 copyright entry in Peters’s name.[3] IMSLP offers a scan of an 1867 New York edition published by Peters, from the University of Louisville’s music library, along with an undated London edition in Pitman’s Musical Library, edited by Thomas Crampton, which IMSLP assigns to 1877.[4]

Illustrated sheet music cover with the title in flowing letters above a young man kneeling at the bedside of a young woman, framed by lilies of the valley and other flowers

Will. S. Hays, You’ve been a friend to me, sheet music, Oliver Ditson & Co., 1879. The cover of an 1879 printing of Hays’s song.

The Traditional Ballad Index sums the song up as a singer’s thanks for friendship through hard times, and reports that a text with no author’s name appeared in Billy Pastor’s Star Troupe Songster in 1876, while another songster credits it to Hays.[5] The Index also lists a fragment called “Faithful Friend” in the Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore.[5] Citing Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirschberg’s book on the Carter Family, the Index credits the original to Hays and an adaptation to A. P. Carter, and it lists the Carters’ Decca record of the song.[5] The Carter Family recorded it for Decca in New York on June 9, 1936, with Sara Carter singing lead and playing autoharp and guitar, Maybelle Carter on harmony vocal and guitar, and A. P. Carter on bass vocal.[6] The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) lists the side on Decca 5283 and Montgomery Ward 8009.[6]

Jim Miller arranges the song, as “You’ve Been That Friend To Me,” in DGD tuning in 15 Tunes In The Public Domain Recorded By The Carter Family, Volume 1, a 42-page book of solo mountain dulcimer arrangements with tablature, lyrics and chord symbols, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "You've Been That Friend To Me"

Sources

  1. WKU Libraries Blog (Western Kentucky University): "William Shakespeare Hays".
  2. Library of Congress: "Friends from the Stephen Foster Era" (Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1870-1885).
  3. Library of Congress: "You've been a friend to me" (Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co., 1879).
  4. IMSLP: "You've Been a Friend to me (Hays, William Shakespeare)".
  5. Traditional Ballad Index: "You've Been a Friend to Me".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Decca matrix 61145. You've been a friend to me / Carter Family".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Jim Miller, 15 Tunes In The Public Domain Recorded By The Carter Family, Volume 1".
  8. Image: Will. S. Hays, You’ve been a friend to me, sheet music, Oliver Ditson & Co., 1879. Music Division, Library of Congress.

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