Dillard Chandler - I Wish My Baby Was Born

From the High Atmosphere (1974)...Ballads and banjo tunes from Virginia and North Carolina, collected by John Cohen in November of 1965

Dillard Chandler (April 16, 1907 - January 1992) was an American Appalachian Folk singer from Madison County, North Carolina. He is chiefly known for his a cappella performances on compilation albums recorded by folklorist and musicologist John Cohen. Chandler knew hundreds of songs that were shared in the community and passed on through generations. He was a cousin of fellow Madison County singers Lloyd Chandler, Dellie Chandler Norton and members of the Wallin Family. He describes how singing was part of his community in the liner notes to Dark Holer: Old Love Songs & Ballads:
"The first singing that I ever heard was old-timey meeting songs, and these old songs like I sing, and these frolics where they get together and pick and sing and drink a little. Maybe a "lassie makin'," or maybe a corn shuckin', maybe a gallon hid in the corn pile. They'd go ahead an' shuck into that- pick the banjo, have a dance. The only kind of music I know anything about is old ballads- just learning songs from somebody else that I've heard sing 'em."

Cohen noted how Chandler's vocals are reflective of the Appalachian idiosyncratic style of "extended phrasing", and ending lines with a falsetto "yip". British Folklorist Cecil Sharp wrote in his research of Appalachian singers:
"The habit of dwelling arbitrarily upon certain notes of the melody, generally the weaker accents. This practice, which is almost universal, by disguising the rhythm and breaking up the monotonous regularity of the phrases, produces an effect of improvisation and freedom from rule with is very pleasing."
According to Cohen, in 1969 Bob Dylan knew Chandler's singing, despite the fact that Dark Holer: Old Love Songs & Ballads had sold only fifty copies at the time. Dylan had a copy of the album.
Appalachian author and musician Sheila Kay Adams said of Chandler, "Dillard was kind of an anomaly; he was caught in between worlds. He was a wonderful singer. Now, his voice was odd, and I think that it was from Dillard that I learned that weird phrasing that is so common to these love songs, that sets them apart."
Chandler spent time working in Asheville, and was "remembered as a man who loved to sing".

Chandler's version of "I Wish My Baby Was Born" has been covered by Uncle Tupelo, Tim Eriksen, Riley Baugus and Tim O'Brien (for the Cold Mountain soundtrack). ~ via Wiki

Lyrics:

I wish, I wish my baby was born
And sitting on its papa's knee
And me, poor girl, were dead and gone
And the green grass growing over my feet

I ain't ahead, nor never will be
Till the sweet apple grows
On a sour apple tree

But still I hope the time will come
When you and I shall be as one...

Photographs by Dorothea Lange

Видео Dillard Chandler - I Wish My Baby Was Born канала alzo61