All kinds of stories are told at the weekly rehearsals. Some are shared for laughs. Others are merely melodies and improvisations. Some come with pictures. And some — like this one — are the tales that are many times older than all of us.
As reported here earlier, traditional versions of “Pretty Polly” were on some of the first discs made by Appalachian musicians at the dawn of the recording industry. These included Eastern Kentuckian John Hammond's "Purty Polly" of 1925 and the "Pretty Polly" versions of B.F. Shelton and Dock Boggs, both in 1927.
To read more about the song’s fascinating origin story — it goes back nearly 300 years in Great Britain, had immigrated in the U.S. by the early 20th century to be collected by song hunter Cecil Sharp and obtained honored status in the folk song revival of the 1960s — check out the earlier Flood Watch article by clicking here.
Floodifying It
The Flood’s version of this song lyrically follows the well-established narrative of Polly and Willie’s fateful night, but melodically it takes a lot of liberties with the traditional tune. The rendition, in fact, is built on a musical idea that dates back a half century to pre-Flood days.
When Charlie Bowen and David Peyton were just starting out as a duo in the early 1970s, they discovered that a repeated scale descending from an opening minor chord resonated nicely on the guitar-Autoharp accompaniment to their voices.
Over the decades, each configuration of the band has found something new to contribute to this basic arrangement. And it is still happening. Just listen to what Dan Cox and Jack Nuckols brought to the song at a rehearsal earlier this month.
More Folkiness?
If you’d like more tunes from The Flood’s dustier shelves, you can use Flood Watch’s resources to find some. Visit the “Tunes on the Timeline” department; click here to reach it.
Once there, scroll all the way to the bottom for links to timeless tunes and their stories, from “Barbara Allen” to “Wayfaring Stranger” listed in the Traditional category.
Meanwhile, if you’d like to add even a little more Flood folkery to your wintry Friday, don’t forget the free Radio Floodango music streaming service, where you can turn on the “Folk” channel for a randomize playlist of tunes.
A Note about The Graphics
Finally, back to the video that tops this week’s article, note that the graphics used to illustrate the performance were generated by artificial intelligence. As reported here earlier, nowadays we sometimes use free online AI software called ImageFX to create accommodating art for these pages.
In this case, that software was asked to generate pictures that appeared to be in an old-fashioned quilt. Let us know what you think of the results.
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