Into the Archive: The Burl Ives Song Book

The Burl Ives Song Book: American Song in Historical Perspective - 115 Songs Hardcover (Ballantine Books)– January 1, 1953

by Burl Ives (Author), Lamartine Le Goullon (Illustrator) 

Burl Ives (1909-1995)

This book has a little bit of history behind it. It was published in 1953, a time when you were as likely to find folk songs and folk singers in big city coffee houses as in any country barn party or 'opry'. As time went on, of course, folk music became more and more segregated into Country and Western, when it wasn’t simply used for its element of protest. Bob Dylan is sort of a living fossil (which is a good thing) from those early times, with Bruce Springsteen (as he grows older) following somewhat in his footsteps, from what I understand.

When we were kids, we had an LP by Burl Ives, Little White Duck and Other Children’s Favorites, which we played over and over. In the middle to late 1990’s John was particularly engaged with music and was very pleased to find a little 1963 paperback of The Burl Ives Songbook. 

(A cover like this, I seem to remember)

I borrowed it to loan to my friend Alan Peschke, because he was a musician and because he was a rabid pipe smoker and there was an old song, “Tobacco’s But an Indian Weed” that I thought that he’d like to see.

I must have been rather vague about the terms of the loan. Weeks and then months passed, until I was too embarrassed to ask for it back. Here is how he remembers the story on his blog, The Briar Files (http://briarfiles.blogspot.com/2008/09/featured-pipe-smoker-burl-ives.html ): “During his travels across the country, [Ives] also collected and cataloged many folk songs that may otherwise have been forgotten. Some of these were published in a collection of simple sheet music called The Burl Ives Songbook, which I happen to have a copy of (a gift from Brer of PowerOfBabel).” 

John was justly a little annoyed at my weakness, but it was rectified years later; he eventually got two hardback copies of The Burl Ives Song Book. Last night he gave one of these to me. For an over seventy-year-old book its paper dust jacket is in pretty good shape. So as the Gaffer might observe: “All’s well as ends better!”

Alan posted his cover of “Tobacco’s But an Indian Weed” on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--LcogONzuA&list=RD--LcogONzuA&start_radio=1