If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi

by IF YOU AIN'T GOT DO-RE-MI SONGG

Overview

Released by Smithsonian Folkways in collaboration with the Museum of American Finance in New York, If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi is a fascinating collection of folk and blues songs about money and its powerful, dangerous allure drawn from the vast Smithsonian Folkways catalog. Full of vernacular tunes chronicling fortunes made, lost or not sought at all, these selections, although many of them date from the Great Depression, have a timeless applicability given that cries of hope and frustration and grand wishes for financial solvency will undoubtedly never cease to be contemporary concerns. Among the gems here are a pair of Woody Guthrie songs, "Do-Re-Mi" from his Dust Bowl cycle, and his classic Oklahoma-outlaw-turned-Robin Hood ballad "Pretty Boy Floyd," Josh White's haunting "One Meat Ball" from 1944, Pete Seeger's stark, banjo-led lesson in international economics titled "Business," and Derek Lamb's 1962 version of "The Money Rolls In," an ode to counterfeiting set to the melody of the old British music hall standard "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean." Autoharpist Kilby Snow's sparkling instrumental take on "Greenback Dollar," which is structurally based on "East Virginia Blues" and not on the Hoyt Axton song called "Greenback Dollar" from the '60s folk revival, is a sonic delight. Then there's "Ida Mae," done here in a version by Joe Glazer. Ida Mae was Ida Mae Fuller of Vermont, who in 1940 was the first person to ever receive a Social Security check (the Social Security Act had been passed in 1935 -- her first check totalled $22.54). Born in 1874, Ida Mae was over a hundred years old when she died in 1975, having drawn checks from the government for some 35 years amounting to some $20,000 in benefits (not a bad return, since she had only paid in $24.75 before she retired in 1939), making her a folk hero of sorts. Glazer also performs a rendition here of what is perhaps the most famous song to come out of the Great Depression, Jay Gorney and Yip Harburg's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," which was written in 1932. That Harburg also had a hand in writing "Over the Rainbow" shows how much hope and yearning are actually at the heart of most of these old songs, which tend to harbor wishes and dreams more than they do declarations of solvency. Money may not actually make the world go 'round (gravity and physics have a much bigger hand in that), but the lack of money sure makes the world a tough place to hang around in, as these apt and durable old songs clearly show while demonstrating an uncommon grace, sense of humor and dogged determination. ~ Steve Leggett

Product Details

Release Date:	03/13/2007
Label:	Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
UPC:	0093074019528
Rank:	162384

Tracks

1. Wall Street Rag  - Ann Charters  - Scott Joplin
2. Empty Pocket Blues (Barrel of Money Blues)  - Lee Hays  - Pete Seeger
3. Do-Re-Mi  - Woody Guthrie
4. Bill Morgan and His Gal  - Will Mahoney  -  New Lost City Ramblers
5. One Meat Ball  - Louis Singer  - Josh White  - Hy Zaret
6. Jim Fisk  - June Lazare
7. Gallis Pole  -  Lead Belly
8. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime!  - Joe Glazer  - Jay Gorney  - E.Y. "Yip" Harburg
9. Yankee Dollar  - Rupert Grant  -  Lord Invader
10. If I Had a Million Dollars  - Johnny Mercer  -  Speckled Red
11. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out  - Rolf Cahn  - James Cox  - Eric Von Schmidt  -  Rold Cahn
12. If I Lose, I Don't Care  -  New Lost City Ramblers
13. Banks of Marble  - Les Rice  - Pete Seeger
14. The Old Arm Chair  -  Huntington  - John Read
15. The Money Rolls In  - Derek Lamb
16. Business  - Pete Seeger
17. If You Lose Your Money  - Walter Brown McGhee  - Sonny Terry  -  Terry
18. Union Maid  -  Almanac Singers  - Woody Guthrie
19. Greenback Dollar  - Kilby Snow
20. The Miller and His Sons  - Horton Barker
21. Penny's Farm  - Pete Seeger
22. Billy Grimes the Rover  -  New Lost City Ramblers
23. Ida Mae (The Social Security Song)  - Joe Glazer
24. The Last Gold Dollar  - Bascom Lamar Lunsford
25. Black Dog Blues  -  Stoneman Family
26. I Don't Want Your Millions  -  Almanac Singers  - Jim Garland
27. Pretty Boy Floyd  - Woody Guthrie

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Rold Cahn   Primary Artist
Kilby Snow   Primary Artist,Autoharp
Lead Belly   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Eric Von Schmidt   Primary Artist,Guitar
The Stoneman Family   Primary Artist
Ann Charters   Primary Artist,Piano
Speckled Red   Primary Artist,Piano,Vocals
Almanac Singers   Primary Artist
Lord Invader   Primary Artist
Josh White   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
June Lazare   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Woody Guthrie   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Horton Barker   Primary Artist,Vocals
Pete Seeger   Primary Artist,Banjo,Guitar,Vocals
The New Lost City Ramblers   Primary Artist
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee   Primary Artist
Rolf Cahn   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Derek Lamb   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Gale Huntington   Primary Artist
Joe Glazer   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals
Bascom Lamar Lunsford   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals
Mike Hudek   Autoharp
Sonny Terry   Vocals,Harmonica
Felix & His Internationals   Accompaniment
Ernest V. Stoneman   Guitar,Vocals
Mike Seeger   Fiddle
Tom Paley   Banjo,Guitar,Vocals
John Cohen   Banjo,Guitar,Vocals
Brownie McGhee   Guitar,Vocals
Gregory Felix   Clarinet
Hattie Stoneman   Fiddle
Patrick McDonald Macbeth   Cuatro
E.G. Huntington   Guitar,Vocals

Technical Credits

John E. Herzog   Compilation Producer,Liner Notes
Jack Manischewitz   Compilation Producer,Editorial Assistant
Jeff Place   Compilation Producer,Annotation
Daniel Sheehy   Production Supervisor
Sonny Terry   Composer
Woody Guthrie   Composer
Alan Lomax   Arranger,Adaptation
Johnny Mercer   Composer
Pete Seeger   Composer
Pete Reiniger   Mastering
Huddie Ledbetter   Arranger,Adaptation
Jim Garland   Composer
Joe Glazer   Composer
James Cox   Composer
Mary Monseur   Production Coordination
Carla Borden   Editorial Assistant
Will Mahoney   Composer
Walter Brown McGhee   Composer
Louis Singer   Composer
Les Rice   Composer
Joe Parisi   Design,Layout Design
D.A. Sonneborn   Production Supervisor
Jay Gorney   Composer
E.Y. "Yip" Harburg   Composer
Lee Hays   Composer
Hy Zaret   Composer
Scott Joplin   Composer
John Read   Composer
Rupert Grant   Composer