"Oh Marry in Time"

Listening to The Blue Sky Boys version of "Oh Marry in Time" - "Scarborough Fair" Appalachia-style, complete with a "… true love of mine" in the refrain. Video isn't available here in Europe - Hope you have better luck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rLcZCvVPfU

A shame we can't get that Bill......anyone who has a version of The Unquiet Grave on their playlist is someone I'd like to hear....

If you're a habitué of Spotify, their album is called "Presenting The Blue Sky Boys - Bill & Earl Bolick."

The story line remains the same - "Do this … Do that … and you will be a true love of mine" - but "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" might have lost their significance in the context of stewed possum, or whatever ...

I pine for the days when "hillbilly" musicians featured traditional songs in their repertoires. I have an interesting bluegrass version of Barbara Allen on a '60's Hylo Brown & the Timberliners LP, and the early Doc Watson recordings were sprinkled with songs from the same vein of tradition that Prof. Child and Cecil Sharp mined. Bill Monroe's Pretty Fair Maiden In the Garden is a version of John Riley, Banks of Claudy, and others around the "long absent sailor/broken token" theme.

There's so much out there to be found and reinvigorated; not necessary to compulsively write new ones, IMHO.

There are dozens....probably into hundreds of 'Riddle Songs' in the 'english' tradition (inc the rest of the Uk, no doubt )

Lankum (Lynched) Tri Corner house is a current favourite as well as Captain Wedderburns Courtship, especially the Bellowhead version....

...Tri Colour....not corner...my bad....

If anyone is interested - a small bit of background on the 'Presenting The Blue sky Boys' album.

It was recorded 'live in the studio', in Los Angeles, in a single afternoon, before a Blue Sky Boys concert at UCLA. (And knowing how the Blue Sky Boys sometimes worked, they probably didn't even rehearse the songs before the session!)

Anyhow - I always felt that it was an excellent album, and that it featured some of Bill Bolick's best mandolin playing (check out the song "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet") - but when I once mentioned the record to Bill, he said that he didn't like the way the album turned out . . . he said it sounded 'too rushed'.

If I could only play a fraction as well as Bill, even when he was 'rushed' - I'd be a happy guy.