Darling Nelly Gray
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"Darling Nelly Gray" is a 19th century anti-slavery ballad written and composed by Benjamin Hanby in 1856. It is written as from the point of view of an
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
male slave in Kentucky whose sweetheart has been taken away by slave-owners. The man mourns his beloved, who has been sold South to Georgia (where the slave’s life was conventionally regarded as harsher). He eventually dies and joins her in heaven. The song became popular in the years preceding the Civil War and helped promote support for the abolitionist cause.


History

Hanby composed the song while attending
Otterbein University Otterbein University is a private university in Westerville, Ohio, United States. The university was founded in 1847 by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and named for United Brethren founder, Philip William Otterbein. It has been as ...
in
Westerville, Ohio Westerville is a city in Franklin County, Ohio, Franklin and Delaware County, Ohio, Delaware counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. A northeastern suburb of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus as well as the home of Otterbein University, the population was 39 ...
in 1856 and was inspired by the Hanby family’s encounter with Joseph Selby, a runaway slave from Kentucky who died at the Hanby home in Rushville after relating the moving story of his escape to freedom and having to leave behind his lost love. Benjamin Hanby's father, Bishop William Hanby, a United Brethren minister who was active in the
Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...
, was attempting to raise money to free Selby's beloved when Selby died of pneumonia. The relationship to the English folk song
Maggie May "Maggie May" is a song cowritten by singer Rod Stewart and Martin Quittenton, performed by Stewart for his album '' Every Picture Tells a Story'', released in 1971. In 2004, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it number 130 in The 500 Greatest Songs of ...
, which has the same music and similar lyrics, is unclear. The tune was subsequently used by
Geordie Geordie ( ), sometimes known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English, is an English dialect and accent spoken in the Tyneside area of North East England. It developed as a variety of the old Northumbrian dialect and became espe ...
music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...
singer
Joe Wilson Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson Sr. (born July 31, 1947) is an American politician and attorney serving as the U.S. representative for since 2001. A member of the Republican Party, his district stretches from Columbia to the Georgia–South Caro ...
to set his song '' Keep yor feet still Geordie hinny'' and by
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activist and
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member
Ralph Chaplin Ralph Hosea Chaplin (1887–1961) was an American writer, artist and labor activist. Background Chaplin was born in 1887. At the age of seven, he saw a worker shot dead during the Pullman Strike in Chicago, Illinois. He had moved with his f ...
, to set ''The Commonwealth of Toil''. A recording by
Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
and
The Mills Brothers The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed The Four Mills Brothers and originally known as Four Boys and a Guitar, were an American jazz and traditional pop vocal quartet who made more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies and g ...
was popular in 1937 reaching the charts of the day.
Maxine Sullivan Maxine Sullivan (May 13, 1911 – April 7, 1987), born Marietta Williams in Homestead, Pennsylvania, United States, was an American jazz vocalist and performer. As a vocalist, Sullivan was active for half a century, from the mid-1930s to just b ...
recorded the song for Vocalion on October 22, 1937 and
Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwi ...
recorded it for Decca Records on April 25, 1938. The melody of Darling Nelly Gray is the (nearly identical) basis for the melody of
Faded Love "Faded Love" is a Western swing song written by Bob Wills, his father John Wills, and his brother, Billy Jack Wills. The tune is considered to be an exemplar of the Western swing fiddle component of American fiddle. The melody came from an 1856 ...
, a 1950 hit for
Bob Wills James Robert "Bob" Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although Spade C ...
.Michael Corcoran's Texas Top 50", Lonestar Music Magazine, 29 July 2016
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Lyrics

There's a low, green valley, on the old Kentucky shore.
Where I've whiled many happy hours away,
A-sitting and a-singing by the little cottage door,
Where lived my darling Nelly Gray.
Chorus
Oh! my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away,
And I'll never see my darling any more;
I'm sitting by the river and I'm weeping all the day.
For you've gone from the old Kentucky shore.
When the moon had climbed the mountain and the stars were shining too.
Then I'd take my darling Nelly Gray,
And we'd float down the river in my little red canoe,
While my banjo sweetly I would play.
One night I went to see her, but "She's gone!" the neighbors say.
The white man bound her with his chain;
They have taken her to Georgia for to wear her life away,
As she toils in the cotton and the cane.
My canoe is under water, and my banjo is unstrung;
I'm tired of living any more;
My eyes shall look downward, and my song shall be unsung
While I stay on the old Kentucky shore.
My eyes are getting blinded, and I cannot see my way.
Hark! there's somebody knocking at the door.
Oh! I hear the angels calling, and I see my Nelly Gray.
Farewell to the old Kentucky shore.
Chorus
Oh, my darling Nelly Gray, up in heaven there they say,
That they'll never take you from me any more.
I'm a-coming-coming-coming, as the angels clear the way,
Farewell to the old Kentucky shore!


Gallery

Image:Darling_Nelly_Gray_page_2.jpg, Darling Nelly Gray, page two Image:Darling_Nelly_Gray_page_3.jpg, Darling Nelly Gray, page three


See also

*
Passamezzo moderno The passamezzo moderno ("modern half step"; also quadran, quadrant, or quadro pavan), or Gregory Walker was "one of the most popular harmonic formulae in the Renaissance period, divid nginto two complementary strains thus:" For example, in C m ...


Notes


External links

:Text and RealAudio for versions collected in the field by Max Hunter: *Cat. #1440 (MFH #764) - As sung by Otis Williams, Wesley, Arkansas. (Fall), 196

*Cat. #1097 (MFH #764) - As sung by Ollie Gilbert, Mountain View, Arkansas on June 9, 197

{{Authority control American folk songs Songs written by Benjamin Hanby 1856 songs