{"id":739,"date":"2016-04-01T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=739"},"modified":"2024-07-22T08:27:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T12:27:48","slug":"rye-whiskey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rye-whiskey\/","title":{"rendered":"Rye Whiskey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rye Whiskey\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_HvuYjBk-rk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure I learned this from Pete Seeger&#8217;s <em>American Favorite Ballads<\/em> songbook, which has it on page 69, accompanied by a couple of\u00a0 drawings of stereotyped hillbillies and the note, &#8220;A famous late-at-night howler.&#8221; <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-740\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/American-Favorite-ballads-202x300.jpg?resize=159%2C237\" alt=\"American Favorite ballads\" width=\"159\" height=\"237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/American-Favorite-ballads.jpg?resize=202%2C300&amp;ssl=1 202w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/American-Favorite-ballads.jpg?w=210&amp;ssl=1 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 159px) 100vw, 159px\" \/>Seeger lists his source as John Lomax&#8217;s <em>Cowboy Songs,<\/em> which is apparently the first documented source, but the song was known all over the South and Southwest, and far beyond that if one counts the numerous variants, like &#8220;Wagoner&#8217;s Lad&#8221; and &#8220;Jack of Diamonds&#8221; &#8212; the latter being essentially the same song, about the same lifestyle, with emphasis on the card playing rather than the whiskey. I could also count <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/cuckoo\/\">&#8220;The Cuckoo,&#8221; <\/a>which I recorded early in this project, and &#8220;Kentucky Moonshiner,&#8221; which I&#8217;ll probably get to at some point &#8212; all are dipped from the same deep pool of floating verses, modified to fit tastes, situations, or the quirks of memory.<\/p>\n<p>As to the guitar arrangement: I&#8217;ve been saying for years that the point of learning how to play the guitar style of Joseph Spence, the Bahamian master who is one of my favorite musicians ever, was not so much to play his music as to break old habits and come up with new approaches to other songs&#8230; but this is one of the first times I&#8217;ve put that into practice in an obvious way. It doesn&#8217;t sound all that much like Spence, but the guitar vocabulary is straight out of his bag, and I&#8217;m really happy with how it came together.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-741 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Redemption-Rye.jpg?resize=53%2C245&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Redemption Rye\" width=\"53\" height=\"245\" \/>I started singing this when I was a kid, having only the vaguest idea about what rye whiskey might be, and continued singing it on occasion as I aged and began drinking Irish, then Scotch, then Bourbon and other whiskeys&#8230; but it was only a few years ago that I consciously tasted rye, and (due to a recommendation from Marty&#8217;s Liquors in Newton, based on my stated preference for Laphroig, which was getting priced out of my range) made it my regular choice in the high-proof brown category. As far as I can recall, I have only drunk the branded varieties and my moonshine experience is limited to wheat and corn whiskeys, but I am open to broader experience in this field, should anyone care to take my further education in hand.<\/p>\n<p>I will admit one cavil: why, given the option of the ocean being whiskey and oneself being a duck, would one bother to dive to the bottom, much less to remain there, rather than simply sipping at will from the surface while bobbing pleasantly along?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure I learned this from Pete Seeger&#8217;s American Favorite Ballads songbook, which has it on page 69, accompanied by a couple of\u00a0 drawings of stereotyped hillbillies and the note, &#8220;A famous late-at-night howler.&#8221; Seeger lists his source as John Lomax&#8217;s Cowboy Songs, which is apparently the first documented source, but the song was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rye-whiskey\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rye Whiskey<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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I assumed I'd got it from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, who were favorites of mine, but they don't seem to have done it, and the only version I can find of it in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"whiskey in the jar broadside","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/whiskey-in-the-jar-broadside.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5634,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/flying-dutchman\/","url_meta":{"origin":739,"position":1},"title":"Flying Dutchman (Bill Morrissey)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill Morrissey sounded like an old man long before he was one, which was weird, because he looked like a teenager long after he was one.\u00a0 When I met him, he was about thirty years old, fresh-faced, with the semi-long hair that went with being a high school student in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/older-bill-morrissey.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":861,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/john-hardy\/","url_meta":{"origin":739,"position":2},"title":"John Hardy (Carter Family)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The ballad of John Hardy, hanged for murder in 1894, with some mention of the Carter Family and my acquaintance with the autoharp.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"autoharp book","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/autoharp-book-230x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1223,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/midnight-hour-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":739,"position":3},"title":"Midnight Hour Blues (Leroy Carr)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Another classic Van Ronk guitar arrangement, this was also the first song I learned by Leroy Carr. Carr was a massively influential figure who virtually redefined blues in the late 1920s and early '30s, turning it from rowdy, shouting dancehall, theater, or streetcorner music into a sensitive, moody style suited\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/images\/carrpic.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5512,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/barstow\/","url_meta":{"origin":739,"position":4},"title":"Barstow (Bill Morrissey)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a lot of favorite Bill Morrissey songs, and this is near the top of the list. I was sitting at the dining room table on Appleton Road with Jeff McLaughlin one afternoon, when Bill came downstairs and sang this for us. He'd been working on it for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Bob-and-Diana-Suckiel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1478,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-on-my-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":739,"position":5},"title":"Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The musical education I got from Dave Van Ronk was by no means limited to guitar lessons, or to his own work. 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