Dumbarton’s Drums—More Songs from the Beers Family

The Beers Family

1967; date of MP3 release, evidently by Columbia/Legacy, unknown

1. The Black-Haired Lass
2. My Love Loves
3. The Peg Leg Weaver
4. The Golden Skein
5. The High Wind That Blew the Low Post Down
6. The House Carpenter
7. Haste to the Wedding
8. The Maid on the Little San Croix
9. In My Garden Grows Plenty of Thyme
10. The Green Fields of America
11. All on a Gorm’l Day
12. Time Passes
13. The Bachelor Boy
14. The Lonesome Dove
15. The Lamplighter’s Hornpipe
16. Dumbarton’s Drums

I only discovered in 2023 that this had been released digitally, and I immediately added it to my library as it had been a part of my childhood musical background (along with their An American Tradition album) and I still had it on cassette tape and vinyl but was delighted to now have it on my computer too.

It’s all lovely, and “All on a Gorm’l Day” is a hoot, but “The House Carpenter” is the one track on this album that truly rivets me; now and then I sing it and find that I’m the initial singer’s counterpart—which would suppose that I’m the house carpenter’s wife, in dialogue with this romancing swain, but in both cases I’m male. All that makes for a beautifully augmented appreciation of an already exquisite recording and song.

This is the original cover of the LP issue my family had.

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Comments © 2023 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.