The latest items to catch my ear in the Archive of Folk Culture are two reels of recordings of Eunice Yeatts McAlexander, a ballad singer who was recorded in 1978 as part of AFC’s Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project. McAlexander, who passed away in 1990, had many wonderful versions of traditional ballads brought over to Appalachia from Britain, and she’s a great source for unusual ballad texts. I’ve been a fan of McAlexander’s singing for years through recordings made by other fieldworkers, and I’ve learned to sing a few ballads from her repertoire over the years! Still, even after 20 years at AFC I didn’t know she had been recorded (before my time) by our own field team. These reels only caught my ear because my friend and retired colleague Carl Fleischhauer noticed them in the collection and alerted me to them as something that would likely interest me, so I owe many thanks to Carl for the discovery! Carl also went in and adjusted some of the photos for me to use in this blog. I’ll give a little background on the singer and her songs, and embed the digitized reels along with relevant photos below.
Eunice Yeatts was born in 1909 in Mayberry, Patrick County, Virginia. Eunice’s father, John Henry Yeatts, was a horseback mail carrier, and after retiring from that demanding job partnered with Eunice’s two eldest brothers to buy and operate the Mayberry Trading Post, a general store which still stands today. Both John Henry Yeatts and Eunice’s mother, Edna Reynolds Yeatts, were singers of traditional ballads and other songs, and Eunice learned many of her songs from them. According to Tom Carter, “Edna would often sing of a morning while making breakfast. John Henry was shy about his voice but, as Eunice would say, ‘really let his lungs out’ when out by himself.” Musically, John Henry was primarily known as a banjo player, and entertained the family with banjo tunes as well.
The Yeatts family valued education, and most of John and Edna’s children did well in school. Eunice was no exception; after finishing high school, she attended Radford Teachers College and earned a degree. At the college one of her closest friends was Ruby Bowman, who was a more active ballad singer than she was. At college the two friends encountered Alfreda Peel, an alumnus of Radford who was one of the most active collectors for the Virginia Foklore Society. Peel encouraged Yeatts and Bowman to keep up their singing, and arranged for University of Virginia professor Arthur Kyle Davis to record some of their songs in 1932. This puts them in the company of Texas Gladden, another great Virginia ballad singer who was encouraged by Peel and first recorded by Davis before being recorded by other collectors for the Library of Congress.
In 1933, Eunice Yeatts married Elkanah Addison McAlexander, also of Patrick County. Elkanah later served in the Pacific theater in World War II and returned to a career with the Virginia Department of Transporation. Eunice meanwhile became a teacher at the Meadows of Dan school, where she continued to work until her retirement. Together they had two daughters and a son.
In 1960, Arthur Kyle Davis Jr. published More Traditional Ballads of Virginia, an award-winning ballad collection in which he included several of the songs he had collected from Eunice in 1932, printing the texts and tunes, and attributing them to “Miss Eunice Yeatts, Meadows of Dan, Patrick County.” With interest in folk music blossoming during the folk revival, a new generation of fieldworkers emerged, looking for some of the singers whose songs appeared in influential collections. Although Eunice had married and changed her last name, she was still in Meadows of Dan and well known in her local community, so she was relatively easy to find. Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, she was often visited by collectors, including Tom Carter in 1974, Kip Lornell in 1976, Wally Macnow in 1978, Mike Yates in 1979-80, and Julie Henigan in 1985. All the while, both while she was teaching and after her retirement, she was active at the Missionary Baptist Church, including as a piano player. Her other artistic pursuits included quilting and painting; her niece Gerry Yeatts Scardo has written that she was “known in the community for her beautiful oil paintings.” When she passed away in 1990, she left behind a legacy not only of songs, but of quilts, of art, and of the learning she had instilled in her own children and in her many students.
Wallace “Wally” Macnow, himself a folksinger, made his recordings of Eunice as part of the American Folklife Center’s Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project. For that reason they’re part of the AFC archive and available on the Library of Congress website (and in this blog)! At the time Macnow was a staffer at the National Park Service, which was a partner on the Blue Ridge Folklife Project. Because the NPS was interested in the project as a means to train their own employees to do folklore fieldwork, Macnow was classified as an intern, but he contributed a great deal to the fieldwork, including these two reels. Macnow has continued to be active in folk music circles until the present day.
The reels recorded by Macnow contain eight old ballads (including a one-verse fragment), one traditional lyric song, and four children’s songs. Along the way, McAlexander makes interesting comments about the songs and about her life. It’s particularly fascinating to hear the ways in which her education and her interaction with folklorists affected her ballad repertoire. For example, early on she says that she knew “Wild Hog in the Woods” from her father, but never really learned it because it had a bad reputation; as one of her students once remarked, “Grandpa said that every old drunk in the country used to come home singing that!” As a result, she only made an effort to learn all the words in 1932 when she learned that Arthur Kyle Davis was going to record her singing.
Of “George Collins,” McAlexander comments that it has a pretty tune, but “of course, all those old ballads got corrupted by colloquialisms and different kinds of expressions,” revealing that as a schoolteacher she was ambivalent about the songs’ non-standard dialect. But she also recognized that such features accurately reflected the way people speak, and especially how they spoke in the past: “I remember my grandmother, she never hardly used a verb without putting that ‘a’ on it, ‘a-sitting’ and ‘a-working,’ or something like that.”
In addition to those interview highlights, Reel 1 includes the following songs: “Three Little Babes” (aka “The Wife of Usher’s Well”) [Child 79, Roud 196], “Wild Hog in the Woods” (aka “Sir Lionel” or “Bangum and the Boar”) [Child 18, Roud 29], “Lord Bateman” [Child 53, Roud 40] “Stormy Winds How They Blow” (aka “The Mermaid”) [Child 289, Roud 124], “George Collins” (aka “Clerk Colvill”) [Child 42, Roud 147], “The House Carpenter” (aka “The Demon Lover”) [Child 243, Roud 14], and “The Old Woman Who Lived By the Sea” (aka “The Two Sisters”) [Child 10, Roud 8]. You can hear it in the player below, and see a detailed log further down in the post.
Reel 2 begins with McAlexander’s version of “Little Massie Grove,” which she learned from her friend Ruby Bowman Plemmons. She says that, like “Wild Hog in the Woods,” this ballad wasn’t sung in mixed company because it wasn’t thought to be “quite proper;” her mother knew it, she says, but didn’t sing it. She also says the ballad may be about an ancestor of hers because her grandmother’s family were Barnards, and the lord and lady in some versions are also named “Barnard.” This leads to one of her most interesting comments, when she says the ballad was known as “Little Matthew Graves and Lady Barnard” in “one of the books that had collected those…Child ballads,” revealing her familiarity with ballad scholarship and printed collections. She says her source, Ruby Bowman Plemmons, sang it as “Lord Donald” and she offers to sing it that way too. When Macnow asks her to sing it the way she usually does, she confirms: “I usually sing ‘Lord Barnard,’ since I learned that was the original.” It seems that she made a conscious decision to use printed versions in constructing her ballad text, perhaps influenced by the possibility of a family connection to the people in the song.
After “Little Massie Grove,” Macnow asks McAlexander if she knows any more recent songs “that might have been made up in this country.” She suggests a song that might come from “the war between the states,” and commences a long digression about her family’s participation in the Civil War before singing “The Cruel War is Raging.” In fact this song is of unknown origin; G. Malcolm Laws believed it was based on a British broadside. It’s about a young woman offering to follow her Johnny into battle, and it does have many parallel songs in British tradition, but no closely related text has surfaced on a broadside. In oral tradition, it was most common in the U.S., but there are many versions as well in Newfoundland and elsewhere in Canada. Many scholars think it’s older than the American Civil War, and goes back to Colonial times; but if so it could still have been sung by Civil War soldiers.
The topic of the interview then turns to other kinds of songs, and McAlexander sings several nursery rhymes. She also sings a popular commercial song, “Put My Little Shoes Away,” which was published as sheet music in 1870, but went on to be an early country, folk, and bluegrass standard with such singers as Riley Puckett and Ralph Stanley making popular recordings. Even Woody Guthrie recorded a version of this song. Amusingly, McAlexander suggests that her own children didn’t like it much because it was too sad, but she obligingly sings it for Macnow’s tape recorder.After a few more nursery items, McAlexander closes the interview on a really intriguing note:
“It used to bother me in some of the songs, when the lines would not rhyme. You know, they would have a false rhyme. I guess I was born with that sense of rhythm because I can remember when I was very small and my older brothers and sisters having me to make up rhymes. Of course they were nonsense rhymes, but I would make them up for them. And another form of entertainment: I learned to spell before I could…just as soon as I could talk just about. And something like this is why I know there’s such a thing as carried over knowledge from one life to another.”
I’ll admit I didn’t expect to hear a devout Baptist suggest that she believed in reincarnation because she learned to spell so young, but that’s the great thing about fieldwork…you never know what you’ll learn!
The songs and nursery rhymes on Reel 2 are the following: “Little Massie Grove” (aka “Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard”) [Child 81, Roud 52], “The Cruel War is Raging” (aka “The Girl Volunteer”) [Laws O33, Roud 401], “King William Was King George’s Son” [Roud 4203], “Put My Little Shoes Away” [Roud 4340], “Bye, O Baby Bunting” [Roud 11018], and “Trot to Town,” which appears to be a unique ryhme, but similar to many other dandling rhymes. Hear the reel in the player below, and after that find some links and a detailed tape log. Thanks for reading this far!
More of Eunice Yeatts McAlexander In this Collection
The Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project documented Eunice McAlexander as a singer and a quilter, and also documented her home. To find all the photos and audio relating to Eunice might be tough, but these two links should get you to most of them:
“McAlexander” in the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project.
“Meadows of Dan Quilters” in the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project.
More of Eunice Yeatts McAlexander Elsewhere
If you want to hear more of Eunice Yeatts McAlexander’s singing, there are several sites with more online recordings:
- Arthur Kyle Davis’s 1932 recordings can be heard by searching on “Yeatts” in the collection at this link.
- Reel 1 of Julie Henigan’s 1985 recordings in the Southern Folklife Collection can be heard at this link.
- Reel 2 of Julie Henigan’s 1985 recordings in the Southern Folklife Collection can be heard at this link.
- Recordings from various collectors can be heard at this link from the Field Recorders Collective.
Detailed Tape Logs
Ballads and songs performed by Eunice McAlexander, Meadows of Dan, Virginia, part 1 [AFC 1982/009: AFS 21794]
00:29 Introduction
00:31-00:56 Introduction to “Three Little Babes.” She learned it from her mother, who learned it from HER mother.
00:57-04:33 “Three Little Babes”
04:37-05:43 Chat. McAlexander says she learned songs from her mother and older siblings, and a few from her father, who also played instruments. She says her family did not tend to have large musical gatherings, but that she believes other families did. MacNow requests “Wild Hog in the Woods.”
05:45-07:04 introduction to “Wild Hog in the Woods.” McAlexander says the song was widely known but not accepted in polite society. She says she once collected a version with her student, who said, “Grandpa said that every old drunk in the country used to come home singing that!” She also says that she knew of the song because her father sang it, but made an effort to learn all the words because “Dr. Davis,” i.e. Arthur Kyle Davis Jr., was going to record her singing. This would have been in 1932.
07:04-09:30 “Wild Hog in the Woods.” [08:20-08:45 In the background, the phone rings and someone answers.]
09:30-10:08 Chat. McAlexander confirms that she learned “Wild Hog in the Woods” from her father, and that she learned some of her songs as a child. She then says she learned some songs from a friend who knew more songs than she did. She then offers to sing “Lord Bateman.”
10:08-15:08 “Lord Bateman”
15:18-16:30 Chat: Eunice says she learned “Lord Bateman” from her friend, Ruby Bowman Plemmons, originally of Laurel Fork, Virginia, but living in Tennessee. She says Plemmons was recorded by Arthur Kyle Davis at the same time she was, in 1932. She says she had last seen and sung with Plemmons about two years before this session.
16:30-16:50 McAlexander offers to sing “The Stormy Winds How they Blow” but is not sure she can remember the words.
16:50-17:30 “The Stormy Winds How they Blow” (one verse) 16:50-17:26
17:40- 19:38 “George Collins”
19:38-21:20 Chat. Eunice says “George Collins” has a pretty tune, but “Of course, all those old ballads got corrupted by colloquialisms and different kinds of expressions. But I remember my grandmother, she never hardly used a verb without putting that a on it, “a-sitting” and “a-working,” or something like that.” She says her parents mostly learned their songs from their parents, and gives as examples “The House Carpenter” and “Barbara Allen,” which her mother learned from her grandmother. Of Barbara Allen she says “I wouldn’t sing that. Everybody knows that!” Macnow requests “The House Carpenter.” Two false starts to find the pitch.
21:20-26:10 “The House Carpenter”
26:10- 27:19 McAlexander apologizes that her voice gets “rough edges,” and says “I never was a great singer, but my voice was completely true when I was younger.”
27:19-27:50 Eunice asks if Wally would be interested in “The Texas Rangers” even though it isn’t very old. Wally says yes. But it appears the tape was stopped, and if she sang it, it was not recorded.
27:50-28:34 Eunice offers a song she learned from one of her pupils, who learned it from her grandparents. She explains “We were learning about Colonial times, and we did quilt squares–we did everything the old way, you know. She called it “The Old Woman Who Lived by the Sea.” but I had seen other versions of it, I think, as “The Two Sisters.”
28:34-31:08 “The Old Woman Who Lived by the Sea” or “The Two Sisters.”
31:08-31:18 McAlexander onfirms that she learned the last song from a pupil.
31:18 Tape ends
Ballads and songs performed by Eunice McAlexander, Meadows of Dan, Virginia, part 2 [AFC 1982/009: AFS 21795]
00:28 Eunice McAlexander introduces “Little Massie Grove.” She says it wasn’t sung in mixed company because it wasn’t thought to be “quite proper.” She says it may be about an ancestor because her grandmother’s family were Barnards, and the lord and lady in some versions are called Barnard. She says it was known as “Little Matthew Graves and Lady Barnard” in “one of the books that had collected those…Child ballads.” She says the person she learned it from sang it as “Lord Donald” and offers to sing it that way, but Macnow asks her to sing it the way she usually does, and she confirms that she usually sings Lord Barnard, “since I learned that was the original.”
01:20-05:20: Little Massie Grove
05:20-07:49 Chat. Macnow asks if she learned “Little Massie Grove” from her father, and she repeats that she learned it from a friend. She says she later found that her mother knew the song, but she never heard her mother sing it because she “didn’t think it was proper to sing it.” Macnow asks if she knows any more recent songs “that might have been made up in this country.” McAlexander says “There was one Dad used to sing. I think maybe it arose about the time of the war between the states. She speaks at some length about her family’s participation in the Civil War. Macnow requests the song.
07:49- 08:38 “The Cruel War is Raging”
08:38- 12:34 Chat: McAlexander notes that she misplaced a line of the last song. Says she is glad both songs and fiddle tunes are being preserved by AFC. Macnow asks about songs other than ballads, and mentions “ditties.” McAlexander talks about one song she heard but didn’t like, but does not give a title. Macnow asks how she learned her songs. She says one cousin sang while quilting and had a pretty voice with a large range and could go as high as necessary. She says her mama sang a lot around the house, and that her father had a pretty voice with a melodious quality, but didn’t sing very much. She says he played the banjo and the children learned to dance, but that as the family got more “strong in religion” she wasn’t allowed to dance much. Macnow asks about play-party games, and she says they did play singing games. She mentions “Skip to my Lou” but supposes it was “no novelty.” She announces “King William was King George’s Son.”
12:34-13:30 “King William Was King George’s Son.”
13:30- 1428 Chat. McAlexander says she always thought play-party songs were silly, and Macnow suggests they were a good replacement for dancing. Macnow asks if she ever sang her children to sleep with lullabies. She says yes. She mentions “Put My Little Shoes Away,” about a boy who has died, and says that her children thought it was sad and didn’t like her to sing it. Macnow asks if she remembers it, and she says it was popular on the radio.
14:28- 15:40 “Put My Little Shoes Away.”
15:40-15:49 Chat. McAlexander says she used to sing “Sweet & Low” and “Bye o Baby Bunting.” Mcnow asks for “Bye o Baby Bunting.”
15:49- 16:09 “Bye o Baby Bunting.”
16:09- 16:40 Chat. McNow asks if she just sang the one verse of “Baby Bunting” over and over until the children fell asleep, and she confirms. Macnow asks where she learned it, but she says everyone knew it. He asks if everyone used it to put their babies to sleep, and she says “yes, I expect so.” She then says there was a poem she recited to entertain her children, “Trot to Town.”
16:40-16:55 “Trot to Town.”
16:55- 19:07 Chat: McAlexander explains that “you’d be giving them a ride at the same time” when you recited “Trot to Town.” Macnow confirms that this means “bounce them up and down on your knee.” Macnow remarks that it’s interesting that songs had purposes, incuding telling stories, putting children to sleep, and “maybe take your mind off something that was tedious.” Macnow mentions a friend who always sang a particular song while washing dishes. McAlexander remarks that it used to always bother her when songs had lines that didn’t rhyme or “had a false rhyme.” She says she “must have been born with that sense of rhythm” because she can remember that when she was very small her brothers and sisters would ask her to make up rhymes and she would oblige. She says she also could spell as soon as she could talk, and her siblings would give her words and ask her to spell them. It’s one of the things that convinces her there is “carried over knowledge from one life to another.” But she also says she sometimes made up a letter when spelling words! Macnow says it’s very kind of her to share her songs and stories. They turn off the tape at 19:07.