[78-L] Kipling as Lyricist

[Chris Zwarg]

At 06:10 06.10.2008, you wrote:
>Dnjchi at aol.com wrote:
>> Years ago, when doing my radio show, I considered a show devoted to the  
>> words of Kipling set to music.  "On the Road to Mandalay" comes  immediatelly to 
>> mind, as well as "I Learnt About Women from 'Er".  I didn't  do the show 
>> because I couldn't locate enough songs.  Can anyone along the  line add others songs 
>> based on Kipling's poems?
>
>The Road to Mandalay is one of the Barrackroom Ballads of which several 
>have been set by various composers. Perhaps the most interesting setting 
>is by Cobb and sung by Peter Dawson. The interest lies in Dawson having 
>here used Cobb as a pseudonym for his own composition.

NO!!! Gerald F. Cobb was a real person, he set a whole song cycle from the Barrack-Room ballads, some of which were recorded even before Dawson became a singer (e.g. Andrew Black, 1903). The whole cycle was recently recorded on CD:

http://www.swapacd.com/cd/album/6139058-gerald+f+cobb+barrack+room+ballads

Haven't heard it, no idea if the baritone Ralph Meanley is a match for Black, Dawson, and all the other great British baritones of 100 years ago....

You are probably thinking of "J. P. McCall" which was Dawson's nom-de-plume for his own compositions. AFAIK, no version of "Mandalay" was among them, but his versions of "Boots", "Route marchin'" and "Cells" are IMHO the definitive settings of these poems.

Apart from Cobb's version, Dawson also recorded "Mandalay" as set to music by Charles Willeby, Oley Speaks and Walter Hedgcock. Dawson's very last commercial recording (in 1958) was an extended musical arrangement of the whole poem - all the settings mentioned leave out a verse or two, at least on record, to fit one 78 side. This "Mandalay Scena" used parts of all four settings strung together, and was issued as a 45rpm Extended Play only.

Dawson also recorded at least one of Edward German's Kipling settings: "Kangaroo and Dingo" from "Just-So Songs", issued on Zonophone for the Australian market only.

There were many more Kipling settings composed and recorded during his lifetime - his poems, unlike his prose, quickly fell from public favour after Kipling's death, and many of these songs and ballads have never been recorded again. 

Once very popular were:

"Danny Deever" (set by Water Damrosch; there is also a Gerald Cobb version which however is musically inferior)
"The absent-minded beggar" (set by Arthur Sullivan for Ian Colquhoun who recorded it for Berliner in 1899)
"Follow me 'ome" (set by W. Ward-Higgs, recorded by Dawson and others)
"Have you news of my boy, Jack?" (set by Edward German, recorded by Louise Kirkby-Lunn with a band under the composer's baton, and by Clara Butt with Beecham)
"Rolling down to Rio" (another "Just-So Song" by Edward German, many recordings)
"Mother o' mine" (set by Frank E. Tours, recorded by John McCormack and many others)
"Recessional" (set by Reginald de Koven)
"A smuggler's song" (set by Charles G. Mortimer, the B-side of Dawson's ubiquitous - and very fine! - HMV of "Boots")

Chris Zwarg