Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives took to the road and became a folk legend with his adoption of the character of a travelling balladeer. Ives started singing as a child in Hunt City, Jasper County, Illinois. He would recount: "Before l was born I'm certain that l was fashioned to sing, and to sing simple songs, because l went to church prenatally and my parents sang in this simple little church. They sang all these wonderful evangelistic hymns that are very dramatic, poetic, and exciting. What I'm talking about is folk poetry, pure religious folk songs, the basic four-part hymn from which the Hawaiians got their folk music and from which black people got their spirituals ... To me [my grandmother's] ballads brought a world shining with excitement and color; they brought people — like Barbara Allen dying of love and a lone lover sitting on top of a snow-covered mountain. I had never seen a mountain on the prairies of Illinois. Pictures, romance, passion, bravery, gallantry, sorrow, joy — she sang a storybook of tales culled through centuries and tempered by time into beautiful poetry. Kate loved the ballads and loved to sing them for the boys and girls, and that was her religion. I personally liked her point of view better than Grandfather’s in regard to religion."
He played football while attending Eastern Illinois State Teachers College: "I had done pretty well with my grades the first year. In my sophomore year a greater interest in football, girls and other pleasures distracted my attention from the pains of Pillsbury's Psychology and other "academia." One day in English class, during the last semester of my junior year, I was listening to a lecture on Beowulf. There was a large map on the side of the wall, a map of the United States. As the teacher's voice grew dimmer, the map became more luminous. In my imagination I saw the mighty mountains, silver rivers, and wide sweeping plains, magnificent cities, a nation of people I knew nothing of. How I longed to see these things; how I longed to see the Liberty Bell and walk on the streets where Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin had walked. Before I realized what I was doing, I rose and started for the door. The professor shocked me from my reverie by the remark, 'Yes, Mr. Ives, I think you better go home and sleep.' I stopped and gazed on the little dull man who was being paid to he a teacher of teachers. I turned and walked to the door, slammed it closed with a bang, and broken glass crashed to the floor. There was uproar behind me in the class, which did not interest me at all. I went to my room and packed a change of clothes, got my banjo, and started walking down the road. Soon I found myself on the open highway headed east. The cool wind blew in my face and all at once I felt as if I had shed dullness from myself. Before me lay a long gray line with a black mark down the center. The birds were singing. It was spring. My heart jumped for joy. Life, excitement, experience was on this long road. I became a 'Wayfaring Minstrel'."
He spent years on the road riding boxcars, working odd jobs, and playing his banjo; all the while learning new songs. He was arrested for vagrancy at one point; but he also was able to perform on the radio. Ives he studied at Indiana State Teachers College and the Juilliard School in New York with Ella Töedt who urged him take classes on music theory at NYU. The debut in 1941 of his radio show 'The Wayfaring Stranger' was preempted by the news that France had fallen to Germany.
That year his debut album 'Okeh Presents Burl Ives: the Wayfaring Stranger' was released; although it did not contain the eponymous song "Poor Wayfaring Stranger". In 1942, Ives was drafted and performed on armed services radio before his honorable discharge the next year. His second collection of songs 'Burl Ives: the Wayfaring Stranger' came out in 1944. The character of 'The Wayfaring Stranger' would inform Ives' career for decades, as he would appear in numerous comedic and dramatic roles on television, radio, commercials, and motion pictures. He popularized many traditional songs and became a larger than life cultural figure.
http://www.burlives.com/
His autobiography is also entitled 'The Wayfaring Stranger'
http://www.amazon.com/Wayfaring-Stranger-Burl-Ives/dp/1432515438
Poor Wayfaring Stranger
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world of woe
And there's no sickness, no toil, no danger
In that fair land to which I go
I'm going there to see my mother
I'm going there no more to roam
I'm just going over Jordan
I'm just going over home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5sHrOTXX0s
Buckeye Jim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiljtRj6hqM
The Sow Took the Measles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IMDF_RhQPw
The Foggy Foggy Dew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzyteR2_nOU
Black Is the Color
The Blue Tail Fly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr4jeaaVGCA
'The Wayfaring Stranger'
full album:
Side One:
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Leather-Winged Bat - 00:00
Cotton-Eyed Joe - 01:22
Sweet Betsy From Pike - 02:15
On Top Of Old Smoky - 03:56
I Know Where I'm Going - 05:35
I Know My Love - 07:08
Cowboy's Lament - 08:51
Wee Cooper O' Fife - 11:33
Riddle Song - 13:04
Tam Pierce (Old Englisher) - 14:38
Peter Gray - 16:57
Darlin' Cory - 19:32
John Hardy - 22:52
Colorado Trail - 25:26
Roving Gambler - 26:12
Side Two:
---
Bonnie Wee Lassie - 27:59
The Devil And The Farmer - 30:11
On Springfield Mountain - 32:21
Little Mohee - 34:52
Troubadour Song - 37:58
Robin, He Married - 40:20
Lavender Cowboy - 41:48
Green Broom - 43:09
High Barbaree - 46:05
I've Got No Use For Women - 49:25
Old Paint - 52:37
'Return of the Wayfaring Stranger'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fd8RyBmOkg
Side A:
John Henry - 00:00
Billy the Kid - 02:57
Fare Thee Well, O Honey - 05:29
Mah Lindy Lou - 08:00
Mule Train - 10:49
The Worried Man Blues - 13:32
Side B:
Greer County Bachelor - 16:14
Lilly Munroe - 19:14
Old Blue - 22:00
Ballanderie - 23:49
Lord Randall - 24:20
Riders in the Sky - 27:37
Wayfaring Stranger - 30:47
Woolie Boogie Bee - 32:00
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