Darlin' Cory

"Darlin' Cory (or Darling Corey)" (Roud 5723) is a well-known folk song about a banjo-picking, moonshine-making mountain woman. The first known recording of it was by Clarence Gill as "Little Corey" on 6 January 1927, but it was rejected by the record company and never released.^[1] A few months later, folk singer Buell Kazee recorded it as "Darling Cora" on 20 April 1927 (Brunswick 154).^[2] Later the same year, it was recorded by B. F. Shelton as "Darlin' Cora" on 29 July 1927 (Victor 35838). ^[3] Other early recordings are "Little Lulie" by Dick Justice (1929) and "Darling Corey" (released as a single) by the Monroe Brothers in 1936.^[4] In 1941, The Monroes' version was included in a landmark compilation, Smoky Mountain Ballads (produced and annotated by John A. Lomax) on Victor Records, of ten recent commercially-issued hillbilly recordings (including, in addition to the Monroe Brothers, ones by the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, Mainer's Mountaineers, and other Southeastern performers).^[5] That same year on May 28 Burl Ives also recorded it in his debut album Okeh Presents the Wayfaring Stranger (issued August 1941 with liner notes by Alan Lomax).^[6] Since then, many artists have recorded it, including:

• Roscoe Holcomb
• John Hartford (as "Dig a Hole" on Steam Powered Aereo-Takes, 1971)
• Doc Watson
• Bruce Hornsby
• The Weavers
• Crooked Still
• Bill Monroe^[7]
• Harry Belafonte (as "Darlin' Cora," attributed to Fred Brooks),^[8],
• Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs (as "Cora")
• Lonnie Donegan,
• Buddy Greene
• Eileen Ivers
• Pete Seeger
• Old Crow Medicine Show
• Kingston Trio (on their album At Large, 1959)
• Tao Rodriguez-Seeger (grandson of Pete Seeger) recorded a high-energy electric version
• Bill Clifton
• Seldom Scene

References

1. ^ Tony Russell, Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 369
2. ^ Wayne Erbsen, Log Cabin Pioneers: Stories, Songs & Sayings, 2001, p. 78.
3. ^ Tony Russell, Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 826
4. ^ Grateful Dead Family Discography: Darling Corey
5. ^ Neil V. Rosenberg notes that folklorists had been aware since the 1930s that folk songs were being issued commercially on hillbilly records. He states that "hillbilly reissues were learned and performed by revival performers such as Pete Seeger, who credited his sources and suggested that people should copy them, not him." See Neil V. Rosenberg, Bluegrass: A History (University of Illinois Press, 2005) p. 172.
6. ^ Naxos: link.
7. ^ iTunes: Music Store
8. ^ Belafonte at Carnegie Hall, RCA Victor LSO-6006, 1959.

External references

• Traditional Ballad Index at California State University, Fresno
• The Deadlists Project

External links

• Juneberry78s — B.F. Shelton — contains mp3 of Shelton's 1927 version
• Berea College Sound Archives – Darling Corrie — version of the song by banjoist Lily May Ledford, recorded live on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance in 1951