Oh, How the Ladies Did Sail!
#516 / Flood Time Capsule: 1975, 2002 & 2011
With his new Flood brothers 50 years ago this week, fiddler Joe Dobbs offered one of his first public performances of a tune that would have deep roots in his circle of friends.
As reported earlier, Joe had met Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen the previous April and had jammed with them and Roger Samples throughout the summer. Therefore, by September 1975, they had tunes worked out together to share at the latest edition of the “Bowen Bash,” the bi-annual weekend-long party at Pamela and Charlie’s house in the South Side of Huntington.
Among the many tunes with which Joe wowed the Bash party bunch that weekend was his rendering of “Sail Away Ladies,” backed by Rog, Dave and Charlie. A quarter of a century later, the same tune would still be very much in The Flood’s repertoire when the guys went into the studio to record their second album in 2002.
The above video celebrate both occasions, starting with Joe’s 1975 debut for the melody, followed by the 2002 edition of The Flood tackling the same tune in the studio.
About the Song
John L. Stephens was born a decade or so after the Civil War in Bedford County, TN, and was a farmer for most of his life. However, in 1926 he rapidly rose to fame when he won the title of World Champion Fiddler.
He didn’t just win; Stephens bested 1,876 other fiddlers in automobile magnate Henry Ford’s series of contests. The competitions were held at Ford dealerships through the East and Midwest, and winners of the local contests were brought to Detroit to play in the championship round.
Stephens’ prizes were $1,000, a new suit, a new car and a new set of teeth. The title also led to a 1926 studio gig with Columbia Records in which John — as “Uncle Bunt” Stephens —recorded four sides, including the world’s first known recording of “Sail Away Ladies” (though Columbia made it singular, “Sail Away Lady.”)
After the recordings and a short tour, including some appearances on the Grand Ole Opry stage, Uncle Bunt retired from public life and returned to his farm in Tennessee where he died in in 1951.
The very next year, his recording of “Sail Away Ladies” would be included in Harry Smith’s ground-breaking Anthology of American Folk Music, the six-album compilation that was so instrumental in the rise of the American folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s.
From Uncle Bunt to Uncle Dave
Now, we don’t know where Uncle Bunt learned the song, but The Flood’s Joe Dobbs got his take on the tune from a fiddlin’ hero. The version that Joe introduced at the Bash in 1975 — and was still playing in 2002 — he got from A Baker Dozen, Kenny Baker’s 1970 County Records album of country fiddle tunes.
And where did Baker get it? Well, that gets a little murky too. For instance, Betty Vornbrock says The Flood’s old friend, the late J.P. Fraley, might have learned the song from his father. However, she notes that Fraley also told her he remembered hearing Arthur Smith’s version on the radio long after he learned his father’s version.
But let’s step back again to 1926. Uncle Bunt’s “Sail Away Ladies” acquired lyrics the next year when another “uncle” — Uncle Dave Macon and The Fruit Jar Drinkers — recorded his version. That was a beloved rendition at the Bowen Bashes, frequently requested whenever the Kentucky Foothill Ramblers took their turn. The video below features H. David Holbrook, Bill Hoke and Susan Lewis at the May 18, 1974, bash:
By the way, about that chorus (“Don’t you rock ‘em, Daddy-O!”), ethnomusicologist Craig Edwards of Mystic, CT, suggests that the chorus may have originated from Black steamboat workers singing the song to keep themselves in step while loading cargo across a dangerous plank. If the board was rocked, the workers would fall off into the cold waters below.
Enter Roger Samples
That’s a lot of history, but we’re not finished with the story of The Flood’s connection to this remarkable old song. Twenty-five years ago, Floodster Emeritus Roger Samples — living in Mount Sterling, KY, far from his West Virginia roots — was getting nostalgia for the old days of the bashes and all those festivals, like the West Virginia Folk Song Festival in Glenville.
Sometimes when Rog got nostalgic, he would write a song, in this case, the best song he ever wrote. Roger’s “Ladies Sail Away” (yes, he flipped the traditional title) is built around his memories of meeting Joe Dobbs, with the opening lines:
Can you play that song again, sir,
Over in the minor key?
For you see, it brings to mind, sir,
A haunting memory to me.
After recording it on The Samples Brothers’ next album, 1999’s Slightly North of Dixie, Roger related how he wrote the song to commemorate all those wonderful summer nights with Joe and the Flood gang.
Here from a different summer night — this one in August 2011 in the Bowen House — Roger and Joe revisited “Ladies Sail Away”:
More Roger?
Finally, if you’d like to have a little more of Rog’s sweet sounds, check into the Roger Channel in the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.
