LILY OF THE WEST, THE

Created on 18/05/2001
Latest update on 12/07/2024

Artist: Eliza Pace
Author: traditional
Label: L.o.C.
Year: 1937

Lomax recording in Hyden, KY as Handsome Mary The Lily Of The West. Roud #957. Also popular as Lakes Of Pontchartrain in America. This melody belongs to all English-spoken traditions: ballad sheets were found in England since the 1850s, when many Irish had left their homeland due to the Famine, leaving a loved one behind.

Covers:

1946:

Frances Perry [as The Lakes Of Ponchartrain; Helene Stratman-Thomas recording in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, the length of the whole Mississippi river away from the actual Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana]

1950s:

Josef Locke [as Where The Blarney Roses Grow; Blarney as pars pro toto for Ireland]

1957:

Bob Gibson

1961:

Joan Baez

1962:

Peter, Paul & Mary [as Flora]

1963:

Marie LaforĂȘt [idem]

1969:

Nana Mouskouri

1970:

Bojoura [as Flora, with Thijs van Leer]

1973:

Bob Dylan

1974:

Planxty [as Lakes Of Pontchartrain; vocal: Christy Moore, who learned it from Martin Carthy (just like Bob Dylan probably)]

1978:

Paul Brady [idem on his album Welcome Here Kind Stranger (named after a line in the song) and in 2001 as Bruach Loch Pontchartrain]

1983:

Christy Moore [idem]

1990:

Hothouse Flowers [idem]

1991:

Tim O'Brien

1993:

Peter Case [idem]

1994:

Chieftains [with Mark Knopfler (set in Ireland); in '03 with Rosanne Cash (set in America)]

1995:

Willy DeVille [as The Banks Of The Pontchartrain]

1998:

Bert Jansch

2011:

Martin Simpson [as The Lakes Of Pontchartrain]

This melody reached the borders of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana in the slipstream of millions of Irish migrants to the US. Mid 19th century, Irish who'd left the island outnumbered those that stayed behind. Not to be confused with Nanci Griffith's Banks Of The Pontchartrain.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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