Rain and Snow by Betsy Rutherford
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Betsy Rutherford, of Galax, Va., recorded this chilling version of "Rain and Snow" in 1970 in Cambridge, Mass. According to her husband John Coffey, she first heard it from Dick Staber, who played mandolin with Del McCoury. She fell in love with it. Some time later, he heard her sing Jean Ritchie's "Blue Diamond Mines." He fell in love with it, so they worked out a trade on the spot.
Betsy and her husband, John Coffey, along with "side men" (her term) Bill Schmidt and I were the "New Ruby Tonic Entertainers". Back in the `70s we played festivals, square dances and concerts. Recently, a recording of one of the latter has surfaced, a gig we did at the Lovely Lane Methodist Church in Baltimore. What an amazing nostalgic experience to hear the tunes we did that night! Betsy was an wonderful performer blessed with the most astonishing set of pipes! Thanks, Jim, for doing this
i love this, she died the day i was born
My favorite song.....and my favorite version....thanks for doing this
I'm a total A-hole, who mostly leaves negative comments sprinkled through the internet, where they are richly deserved. But this is definitely mostly pretty OK; Glad to hear it, thanks...(For what my stupid opinion even matters). ;)
As sad as it gets. Outstanding performance.
Tastes better than any other version to me. Fiddle is wheeping.
It's a great song. Did well!!
I was wasted and liked this but don’t remember when or why
Perfect.
Cold, rhine, and snow.
so what is the origin of this song?
It's actually NOT a Child Ballad, it's an American murder ballad, post-Civil War. Supposedly written about a murder committed in the 1860s or 70s. It has LOTS of variants, with the aggrieved party being male or female, and the resolution being murder or sometimes not murder.
Grateful Dead lyrics were good but I've always felt the song should start same as it did in the old versions, and same as it does here:
Well, I married me a wife
She gave me trouble all my life
Ran me out in the cold rain and snow
Rain and snow, rain and snow etc.
A kind of universality in that, eh?
Not to be confused with "The Dreadful Wind and Rain" or "The Wind and Rain" which actually IS an olde British Isles tune, and IS a Child Ballad (#10). It's also known as "Twa Sister" and chronicles the jealousy-motivated drowning of a younger, prettier sister. (Note: the Child Ballads are named so for Francis Child who was an early 20th century American musicologist/folklorist who gathered hundreds of them, the Brits apparently having just left them laying around. They are NOT!! "Ballads for Children", definitely not, as a good percentage have murder or rape and almost all have heartbreak and/or death. The music of my people, lol.
I prefer Obray Ramsey version a lot better. Still good though...