Elk River Blues - The Littlest Birds
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- Опубліковано 19 гру 2013
- Recorded live at Moonlight on the Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama, 11/24/2013
Elk River Blues is a fiddle tune by Ernie Carpenter who wrote as he watched the Army Corps of Engineers flood his home. This tune is dedicated to all those who have been displaced. You can find another version of it on The Littlest Birds self-titled debut album.
Composing notes from Sharon: Some friends in Oregon played this tune for me and I fell in love with it. I love the minor, haunting melody. The song struck even more of a chord for me when I dug up the story behind it. Ernie Carpenter was a farmer in West Virginia. The Army Corp of Engineers decided to dam the Elk River, flooding the valley where’s Ernie’s family had farmed. Ernie wrote this tune, watching his home disappear. He spent his last years rambling around, never at home again. I hope he doesn’t mind that I found words, and changed the tune just a bit. It is a bittersweet story, but it made me also acknowledge that all of this land was taken from the people who lived here before me. This song dedicated to all people who are forcibly removed from their homes. I recorded this on my grandpa’s 1800’s Washburn banjo-my first banjo ever.
lyrics
Music by Ernie Carpenter
Words by Sharon Martinson
You dam my river
You flood my farm
You dam my river
You flood my home
I've got no other place I can go to
So forever will I roam.
The water is rising
The birds are flying
They're trying to get
To higher ground
I've got no other place I can go to
So forever will I roam.
*We took this land
From all its people
We took these people
From their land
They’ve got no other
Place they can go to
So forever will they roam
*new, unrecorded verse
Love what you’re doing thank you for the history
Thank you, Mark!
Once again I find myself listening to your version well done
Beautiful!
🥰Thank you!
I've played fiddle for more than 30 years.... I always loved this tune but your lyrics and your rendition in key of "A" brought a tear to my eye...... Loved the cello banjo duet. Thank you
Ah, I hope it was a good tear. This song holds so much emotion. It's the first time I ever tried to write lyrics--I had learned it just as a fiddle tune. I'm so glad it brightened your day. Happy to hear from you. Thank you!
Really beautiful pairing. I could feel the emotion behind the song. Thanks!
Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. It was the first old tune to which I ever wrote words and made an arrangement for the duo.
Love the cello/banjo combination! It makes for an interesting sound and your vocals are nice also :)
I've played this song for at least 10 yrs and this the best rendition. I like the lyrics a lot. My Gramps was a Carpenter from Wheeling and an old timey player around the turn of the 19th-20th century. Don't know that we're related to Ernie, though I'd say there's a resemblance physically, musically and socially. Very cool performance!
Hi Howard, That's a great connection that you have to this song and story. Thank you for sharing! I'm glad you like this version! I've played around, quite literally, with making it more straight, or keeping more of the crooked elements, and it varies, depending on the mood, but the root of this song has a loveliness that is beyond and deeper than what I could add.
What kind of royalty would you like if we sang your lyrics at an open mic?
You can just sing them! I'm happy to share my lyrics with you. Let me know how it goes!
Thank you very much. We'll be sure to mention you when we sing the song. I'll be getting to the transcription before too long and we'll try it on some old timers next month. I'll let you know how it goes.
I can send you my lyrics. I've also got a verse that I didn't do in this live version.
Very pretty. Out of curiosity, was the time signature changed in places from the original? I can see how that choice might've been made in order to add the lyrics.
yes--I pulled out the crookedness of the A part to line up with the Lyrics. When I play this tune w/o singing, I play it they way Ernie did, with the hiccup. And these days, I do it as a mix--more of a straightforward time signature when I'm singing, and keeping it crooked during the instrumental parts. Music is ever evolving!
Are these lyrics printed anywhere? I can’t make them all out. Such a beautiful sound with banjo, cello and voice!!
I have family not far Sutton Lake.
You guys do this lovely/sad tune real justice. .. Would you happen to know how it differs from 'Cherokee Trail' and which was penned first?
Hi there Charlie, I don't know for sure, but they really do have some similarities! I had to look up Cherokee Trail since I didn't know that tune. John Herrmann is a lot younger than Ernie Carpenter, so I'm going to bet that bits of Ernie's Elk River Blues drifted into John's Cherokee Trail, as so often happens with good tunes. The dam across the Elk river was built in the late 1950's so Ernie likely penned that tune somewhere around then. We could ask John, when we wrote Cherokee Trail. I'm not an old-time expert, but there's my 3 cents.
Thanks for the quick response. I guess I should be grateful to be able to hear both tunes. . Now I gotta try to learn to play it n my beginner + fidil.