"Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers" is a Scottish Ballad, written around 1870/1880 by an Angus hawker by-named 'Brechin Jimmy' and 'Besom Jimmy' - his real name was Jimmy Henderson, born in 1850 in Brechin (county Angus) in Scotland.
Jimmy used a tune from an air, which might be more than 150 years old, and which was used in many songs around: a.o.: "The Faughan Side", "The Homes of Donegal", "Davie Faa" and "Paddy West".
On August 31, 1909 Gavin Greig collected a version in Scotland as sung by James Morrison
That version was titled "The Jolly Beggars".
Greig also collected a version titled "Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers" as sung by James Angus.
Between 1928-1935 James Madison Carpenter collected a version of "Tramps and Hawkers" in Hassiewells, Aberdeenshire, Scotland from Alexander B Campbell.
Carpenter collected another version in Dunlugas, Banffshire, Scotland from William Mathieson
You can listen to a cylinder containing Tramps and Hawkers as collected and sung by William Mathieson here---> https://media.vwml.org//audio//JMC//sr227.sr227sl.mp3
Or on this link: Cylinder 6 - Ballads / Mathiston / Bothies (James Madison Carpenter Collection JMC/1/10/6)
NB: From 03:14, this cylinder should be slowed down to around 70% speed.
Bob Dylan used the melody of "(Come All Ye) Tramps And Hawkers" for at least 2 songs: "The Ballad Of Donald White" and "I Pity The Poor Immigrant".
And we can add Dylan's "Huck's Tune", written for the movie "Lucky You" (2006), as a 3rd one using the "Tramps And Hawkers" melody.
Hamish Henderson in Alias MacAlias says that he and American collector Alan Lomax discovered Jimmy when he was living in a model lodging-house in Elgin and brought him to Turriff for recording –“an appropriate venue for Jimmy had for many years been a kenspeckle figure at Porter Fair, the Turra feeing-market.”
So on July 17, 1951 Alan Lomax recorded Jimmy MacBeath singing a version of "Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers".
But the tune is certainly a bit older as is said in Hamish Henderson's book "Alias MacAlias":
Towards the end of the 19th century an Angus hawker by-named 'Brechin Jimmy' and
'Besom Jimmy' - his real name was Jimmy Henderson - composed a song called
Come A' Ye Tramps and Hawkers. It rapidly became popular among the
fraternity, and in recent years it has been carried (in Jimmy MacBeath's
version) to every corner of the English- and Scots-speaking world. (Hamish Henderson in "Alias MacAlias" page 170).
That it is reputed to have been composed by "Besom Jimmy" is also mentioned on the back-sleeve of this Jimmy MacBeath EP from 1960.
Jimmy recorded the above version in September 1959 at Linburn (Scottish National Institution for War Blinded)
The version Jimmy recorded in 1951 was originally released in 1955 on the album "The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music - Volume VI: Scotland" (Columbia Masterworks SL-209)
It is track #16 on side 1 (The Lowlands Side) of this album.
Recorded on July 17, 1951 in the Commercial Hotel in Turriff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
The melody of "Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers" was also used for "The Faughan Side", a song first collected in Sam Henry's Song Of The People (1938) (originally published in tonic sol-fa notation in his regular column in the Northern constitution, of Coleraine, Northern Ireland in 1935).
Here's a version recorded in 1959 by Eileen Donaghy
Listen here: https://audio.itma.ie/1950s_eps/12725-ITMA-EP_B1.mp3
The melody of "Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers" was also used for The Homes of Donegal, written by songwriter Seán McBride in 1955.
Seán only wrote the lyrics, and as I said on top of this post, the actual air itself may be 150 or more years old, many songs around using the same melody, the closest one is a song called "The Faughan Side". This song was part of the Curriculum in national schools in East Donegal and, as Seán was a Teacher in the "Laggan Valley" (East Donegal), it seems prudent to many people to assume he got his inspiration for the "Homes of Donegal" from "The Faughan Side".
The Homes of Donegal was first recorded in 1955 by Charlie Magee (brother-in-law of the composer Sean McBride) for Waltons Piano and Musical Instrument Galleries in Dublin.
(c) Charlie McGee (1955) (as "Homes Of Donegal")
Listen here:
Covered by Joe Lynch in 1957.
Also recorded by Eileen Donaghy in 1959
And Bridie Gallagher made this song famous in 1960
Listen here:
(c) Ewan MacColl (1956) (as "Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers")
Ewan learned it from Jimmy MacBeath.
Listen here:
(c) In the same year 1956 MacColl also recorded "Davie Faa", which uses the same melody.
Listen here:
Ewan MacColl had learned "Davie Faa" from the singing of Jeannie Robertson, who recorded a version in London in 1953 under the direction of Peter Kennedy.
(c) Jeannie Robertson (1953) (as "Davie Faa")
Listen here:
The daughter of Jeannie Robertson also recorded a version of "Davie Faa" in 1969
(c) Lizzie Higgins (1969) (as "Davie Faa")
Listen here:
(c) Ewan MacColl also used the "Tramps and Hawkers" tune for a song titled "Oh Well That's Just the Way It Is" in the Radio Ballad "Song of a Road" about the building of the M1 motorway (a major highway in the UK).
(c) Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger (1959) (as "Oh Well That's Just the Way It Is")
Listen to the complete Radio Ballad here ("Oh Well That's Just the Way It Is" starts at 41 minutes and 30 seconds):
In 1960 Ewan and Peggy recorded this song again for the album "New Briton Gazette, Vol 1", this time using a different title: "Come, Me Little Son".
Listen here:
or here to a version from 1983:
This version was also sung under yet another title "England's Motorway"
The "Tramps and Hawkers" tune was also used for the song "Paddy West", published in 1951 in Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman, by William Main Doerflinger.
But already mentioned in 1928 in James Madison Carpenter MSS Collection.
In that year Carpenter collected a version in Bristol, England by Thomas Ginovan.
(c) Ewan MacColl recorded a version of "Paddy West" in 1957
Listen here:
The tune also ended up on the other side of the ocean. In Canada is was used for the song "Peter Amberley". written by John Calhoun to commemorate his friend Peter Emberley, who was killed in the winter of 1880/1881 in a lumbering accident in the woods of New Brunwick.
(c) Bonnie Dobson (1962) (as "Peter Amberley")
In the YT below Bonnie states: this song is from the East Coast of Canada and it goes back to the traditional Scots melody "Come All Ye Tramps and Hawkers".
When Bob Dylan wrote his song "Ballad of Donald White". he was most likely inspired by Bonnie's "Peter Amberley", as he states at the beginning of his vesion. (SEE FURTHER ON IN THIS POST)
Listen here:
(c) Bob Davenport (1962) (as "Tramps And Hawkers")
SEE ALSO: Bob Davenport and the Rakes
Listen to a sample here: https://rovimusic.rovicorp.com/playback.mp3
(c) Bob Dylan (1962) (melody used in "Ballad of Donald White")
As I said on top of this page, Bob Dylan used the melody of "(Come All Ye) Tramps And Hawkers" for "The Ballad of Donald White".
But "The Ballad of Donald White" was also a little indebted to Bonnie Dobson's "Peter Amberley", as Dylan himself says so, before he starts singing.
Listen here:
A few years later Dylan also used the tune for another one of his songs:
(c) Bob Dylan (1967) (as "I Pity The Poor Immigrant")
On the album John Wesley Harding.
Listen here:
(c) Joan Baez (1968) (as "I Pity The Poor Immigrant")
Released on the album "Any Day Now", made up exclusively of Bob Dylan songs.
Listen here:
(c) Judy Collins (1968) (as "Poor Immigrant")
Released on the album "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"
Listen here:
(c) Gene Clark (1998) (as "I Pity The Poor Immigrant")
Recorded around 1968 and finally released in 1998 on the album "Flying High".
Listen here:
(c) Jim Ringer (1977) (as "Tramps And Hawkers")
In 1977 Jim Ringer wrote a new set of lyrics for this traditional tune.
Listen here:
(c) Tom Russell (1995) (as "Tramps & Hawkers")
This is a cover of the Jim Ringer-version. The Jim Ringer version here above, also contains the words: "The Rose Of The San Joaquin". This became the title for the 1995 Tom Russell album.
Listen here:
(c) Dave Alvin (2006) (as "Tramps & Hawkers")
This is also a cover of the Jim Ringer-version.
Part of the tune and the lyrics of "(Come All Ye) Tramps And Hawkers" may have been derived from the traditional song: "(Come All You) Texas Rangers"
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