Raglan

Raglan
	Artist: Title: Label: Format: Price:	Various Artists The Unexpurgated Folk Songs of Men Raglan LP $15
Infamous collection of obscene songs recorded by Mack McCormick in Texas in 1959. Ostensibly passed off as an anthropological study of bawdy song, it comes across more as an excuse to cut loose with some tunes laced with potty humor and scatology. Housed plain-white-wrapper style, no artist credits are given, but some claim there are short cuts by Buster Pickens, Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin' Hopkins on here. (That would make sense since McCormick was associated with the latter two bluesmen, but I can't vouch. One particularly profane cut does sound like Lightnin', though.) Comes with a booklet of descriptive notes by McCormick, a folklorist who I wish we'd hear more from these days. He writes: "Many voices contribute to what is heard on this disc. The vivid and unique bawdy lore of the Negro is heard from a day laborer, a tenant farmer, a professional singer, and a delivery man. However, for the most part the singers are a group of white middle class business and professional men - a draftsman, a barber, a musician, a building contractor, a chemist, a TV repair man, a merchant, a physicist - gathered informally. Native Texans, New Yorkers, and Englishmen were present in about equal numbers and the recording captures the spontaneous song-swapping which occurred, the bursts of memory and delight as one song evokes another. "The recording technique is unorthodox in that the singers merely ringed themselves about the microphone, with an iced tub of beer nearby, and simply enjoyed themselves with no effort to maintain a recording studio atmosphere. As a result there are fragments and false starts, intruding noises (beer cans being fished out of the tub and the slamming of the toilet door), and an occasional off-mike voice. But as a result of this free song-swapping atmosphere one can witness a vital demonstration of the folk process. The singers only rarely have an opportunity to recall these songs of their youth and military service but as the evening wore on, to their own amazement, long-forgotten verses and songs came as one man's recollection prodded another's. At times they offer contrasting versions of the same song or surprise each other with strange verses to certain favorite songs. They demonstrate for us how traditional lore is unreflectively stored in the mind, and the moods which bring it forth." Please note that the generic white covers of these hard-to-find LPs all have one dinged corner. Track listing: The Ring-A-Rang-A-Roo The Keeper of the Eddystone Light Mamie Had a Baby Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue Take a Whiff on Me The Bastard King of England No Balls at All Barnacle Bill the Sailor Big Jim Folsom Cristofo Columbo The Monk of Priory Hall The Hootchy Kootchy Dance Always in the Hallway The Merry Cuckold In Crawled One-Hung Lo Who Stole My Beer? Dicky Dido Shine and the Titanic You be Kind to Me Boar Hog Blues Grubbing Hoe Uncle Bud The Girl I Left Behind Me There's a 'Skeeter Stavin' Chain You Got Good Business The Dirty Dozens Limericks The Ball of Kirriemuir Change the Name of Arkansas!!!