{"id":43,"date":"2019-11-29T17:01:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T17:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=43"},"modified":"2020-10-26T11:53:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T11:53:03","slug":"sam-hall","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/sam-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>Jack Hall<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>WG Ross\/Trad<\/em><\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td>Trad<\/em><\/td>Roud Index<\/strong><\/td>RN369<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall performers<\/strong><\/td> WG Ross, 1840s<\/em> <\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Pre WW2 Source Singers:<\/strong>
WH Lunt, 1892, Liverpool, England
Samuel Fone, 1893, Devon, England
Louie Hooper, Lucy White, 1903, Somerset, England
William Nott, 1904, Devon, England
Thomas Gale, 1906, Dorset, England
Mrs Seale, 1906, Dorset, England
Mrs Goodyear, 1907, Hamps, England
George Blake, 1907, Hamps, England
Charles Bull, 1907, Hamps, England
Bill Bailey, 1907, Somerset, England
William Stokes, 1907, Somerset, England
Edmund Wittington, 1908, Surrey, England
Fanny Boulden, 1923, N. Dakota, USA
Francis Herreshoff, 1928, Massachusetts, USA
John McPherson, ca1930, co. Durham England
Miss Margaret Michie May, 1936, Virginia, USA
Horace Brown, (1930) Vermount, USA

Recent folk performances<\/strong>
Too many to mention them all: Steve Benbow, Steeleye Span, Walter Pardon, Peter Coe, <\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
 Oh my name is Sam Hall, Sam Hall\n Oh my name is Sam Hall\n And I hate you one and all\n You\u2019re a gang of muckers all\n Damn your eyes.\n  \n Oh, I killed a man they said, so they said\n Yes, I killed a man they said\n For I cracked him on the head\n And left him there for dead\n Damn his eyes.\n  \n So they put me in the quad, in the quad\n Yes, they put me in the quad\n With a chain and iron rod\n And they left me there, by God\n Damn their eyes.\n  \n And the parson he did come, he did come\n And the parson he did come\n And he looked so ******* glum\n With his talk of Kingdom Come\n Damn his eyes.\n  \n And the sheriff he came too, he came too\n And the sheriff he came too\n With his boys all dressed in blue\n They\u2019re a gang o\u2019 muckers too\n Damn their eyes.\n  \n So it\u2019s up the rope ye go, up ye go\n So it\u2019s up the rope ye go\n With your friends all down below\n Saying \u201cSam, I told you so\u201d\n Damn their eyes.\n  \n Saw my Nellie in the crowd, in the crowd,...\n She was looking stooped and bowed, \n So I hollered, right out loud,\n \"Hey, Nellie, ain't you proud?\n God damn your eyes.\"\n  \n So this\u2019ll be my knell, be my knell\n So this\u2019ll be my knell\n Hope God damns you all to hell\n An I hope you sizzle well\n Damn your eyes.\n  \n And now I goes upstairs, goes upstairs\n And now I goes upstairs\n Here\u2019s an end to all my cares\n So tip up all your prayers\n Damn your eyes.\n  \n              <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Jack\/Sam Hall<\/em> has been recorded commercially by a wide range of artists, from Johnny Cash to Steeleye Span – for an up-to-date summary of versions by relatively modern British traditional performers,  Mainly Norfolk<\/a> has the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The song Sam Hall appears to have been popular throughout the 19th century, and appears widely in broadsides and songbooks on both sides of the Atlantic. Versions have been collected from dozens of source singers. I have provided a list of those given by the Vaughan Williams Memorial library, focusing on those prior to World War II, though there are many from after it too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story of the Music Hall song is relatively straightforward: in the 1840s the Music Hall singer W G Ross revised the traditional ballad Jack Hall, changing the name to Sam Hall<\/em> in the process. Jack Hall <\/em>appeared as a broadside in the 1830s but is likely to be older, possibly 17th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WG Ross made his fortune singing this song, becoming a huge attraction in early Music Halls all over England. On 10 March 1848 Percival Leigh noted the following account of an evenings entertainment in an early Music Hall: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \u2018After that, to supper at the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, wherein was much Company, great and small, and did call for Kidneys and Stout, then a small glass of Aqua-vitae and water, and thereto a Cigar.  While we supped, the Singers did entertain us with Glees and comical Ditties; but oh, to hear with how little wit the young sparks about town were tickled!  But the thing that did most take me was to see and hear one Ross sing the song of Sam Hall the chimney-sweep, going to be hanged: for he had begrimed his muzzle to look unshaven, and in rusty black clothes, with a battered old Hat on his crown and a short Pipe in his mouth, did sit upon the platform, leaning over the back of a chair: so making believe that he was on his way to Tyburn.  And then he did sing to a dismal Psalm-tune, how that his name was Sam Hall and that he had been a great Thief, and was now about to pay for all with his life; and thereupon he swore an Oath, which did make me somewhat shiver, though divers laughed at it.  Then, in so many verses, how his Master had badly taught him and now he must hang for it: how he should ride up Holborn Hill in a Cart, and the Sheriffs would come and preach to him, and after them would come the Hangman; and at the end of each verse he did repeat his Oath.  Last of all, how that he should go up to the Gallows; and desired the Prayers of his Audience, and ended by cursing them all round.  Methinks it had been a Sermon to a Rogue to hear him, and I wish it may have done good to some of the Company.  Yet was his cursing very horrible, albeit to not a few it seemed a high Joke; but I do doubt that they understood the song.\u2019<\/em> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The full story of the ballad of Jack Hall, and its relationship to other songs like the ballad of Capt Kidd, is likely to be quite complex, and according to a post by Malcolm Douglas on Mudcat:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the most comprehensive examination of this song and tune family is Bertrand Bronson’s Samuel Hall’s Family Tree<\/em> (California Folklore Quarterly<\/em>, I (1) 1942, and The Ballad as Song<\/em>, University of California Press, 1969 18-36). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I will follow this up\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n