Michael Cassius Dean

This is one of those books that makes you wonder how many other gems have been lost and completely forgotten.

M. C. Dean was a singer who decided to put together a collection of the songs he had learned and sung in his working life. It is a curious, mixed collection -- some fine old folk songs, such as the title ballad, but also some pop songs and show tunes and almost everything else under the sun. And it can be hard to tell which is which. There are no tunes. There are no notes. There isn't even a table of contents or an index. You just open the book and the song texts start coming at you. And the book was very badly printed -- clearly done on the cheap.

All of this makes it very hard to use (a more recent reprint at least added an index of first lines). But the value of the material still makes it worth having for the folklorist -- many of the items found here are quite rare. Is it pure folk? No. But it is the personal repertoire of someone who was very close to the folk.… (meer)