{"id":4692,"date":"2020-08-20T10:33:15","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T10:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=4692"},"modified":"2023-02-23T16:52:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T16:52:51","slug":"the-man-you-dont-meet-every-day-jock-stewart","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/the-man-you-dont-meet-every-day-jock-stewart\/","title":{"rendered":"Man you don’t meet every day, A (Jock Stewart)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>A man you don’t see every day
Jock Stuart
(and similar slight variations: man\/bloke, meet\/see)<\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>c1876<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lyrics<\/strong><\/td>John J Stamford<\/td>Music<\/strong><\/td>John J Stamford<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN975<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>WJ (Billy) Ashcroft<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Source Singers<\/strong>
Thomas, Charles 1930s? USA : Michigan
O’Brien, Cyril 1950-51 Canada : Newfoundland
Mathieson, Willie 1952 Scotland : Aberdeenshire
Robertson, Geordie \/ Robertson, Jeannie 1955 Scotland : Aberdeenshire :
Fraser, George Inglis 1959 Scotland : Aberdeenshire
Cooper, Lena 1966 England : Kent
Brazil, Lemmie 1972 England : Gloucestershire
Bennett, Joachim, 1978 Canada : Newfoundland
Ling, Ruby, 1975-80, England : Suffolk
Dowdy, Douglas, 1982, England
House, Bill, 1985, England : Dorset
Smith, Wiggy, 1994, England : Gloucestershire
Hall, Gordon, 1996, England : Sussex
Stewart, Sheila, 1998, Scotland : Perthshire
Seaman, Stan, 2000, England : Hampshire
Dicks, Harry, nd, Australia
Offa, Alan, nd, Australia
Jones, Lena, nd, England : Kent
H., E., nd, England : Norfolk
Modern performances<\/strong>
Lots including Jon Boden and Chris Foster see Mainly Norfolk entry<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Music Hall version\" from The English Ballads Archive<\/a><\/strong> from a broadside published between 1850 and 1900.\n\nI've a neat little mansion that's build of mud,\nNot far from the county of Kildare;\nI've got acres of land and I grow my own spuds,\nI've enough and a little to spare.\nWell don't think I've come over to look for a job,\nIt's only a visit to pay,\nSo be easy and free while you're drinking with me\nI'm the man you don't meet every day.\n\nSo fill up your glasses and drink whatever you please,\nWhatever's the damage I'll pay.\nYou can be easy and free when you're drinking with me\nI'm the man you don't meet every day.<\/em>\n\nWhen I landed in Liverpool, Oh, what a sight!\nMet my eyes as I gazed at the shore\nThere was Paddy McCullen and young Paddy White\nMichael Lames and one or two more,\nThey all burst out laughing when they saw me walk\nAnd treated me in a fine way\nSays I look here you two scare crows don't think I am a ghost\nI am the man you don't meet every day\n\nThere's a neat little colleen that lives about here\nAnd it's her I've come over to see.\nAnd we're going to be married next Sunday and then\nShe'll come back to Old Ireland with me.\nAnd if you come over twelve months from to day,\nAnd this I will venture to say,\nWe shall have a fine lad who will say to his dad:\nHe's the man you don't meet every day.\n\nWhen I landed in Bradford a few days ago\nI thought I would go to the Star,\nAnd the first man I saw there was Paddy McGee\nWith a glass of best ale at the bar.\nWell I spoke to him kindly, took him by the hand,\nAnd these words to him I did say:\nBe easy and free when you're drinking with me\nI'm the man you don't meet every day.\u201d\n\nJock Stewart as sung by Sheila Stewart<\/strong>\nI'm a canny gaun man,\nAnd a roving young fellow I've been.\nOh, my name is Jock Stewart,\n\nSo be easy and free\nWhen you're drinkin wi' me.\nI'm a man you don't meet every day.<\/em>\n\nI have acres of land,\nI have men at command;\nI have always a shilling to spare.\n\nI'm a piper by trade,\nI'm a roving young blade,\nAnd it's many the tunes I do play.\n\nSo be easy and free\nWhen you're piping wi' me.\nI'm a man you don't meet every day<\/em>.\n\nLet us catch well the hours\nAnd the minutes that fly,\nAnd we'll share them together this day.\n\nNow, I took out my gun,\nWith my dog I did shoot\nAll down by the River Kildare.\n\nSo, come fill up your glasses\nOf brandy and wine,\nAnd whatever the cost, I will pay.\n<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This  complex story provides new evidence  supporting suggestions  made by Chris Wright in his article <\/em>Forgotten broadsides and the song tradition of the Scots travellers….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This folksong, popular throughout the English-speaking world, has often been described as originating in the Scottish or Irish Music Halls.  My delving in 19th-century newspapers seems to confirm this and we can now be reasonably sure that it was first sung by an Irish-American comic largely based in Belfast, WJ Ashcroft<\/a>. It was probably written for him by his principal songwriter and manager, John J Stamford<\/a>. Ashcroft was one of many performers who specialised in stage-Irish songs which drew on Irish stereotypes to comic effect. These songs were particularly popular in the late 19th century and were widely sung in the Halls, concert parties and parlours, throughout the English-speaking world. The professional stage comedians who sang them were sometimes Irish, sometimes not. Ashcroft often appeared as the on-stage character  The Solid Man<\/a><\/em>, a  confident on-the-make Irish-American and its likely that he sang the  A man you don’t meet… <\/em>as this character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The earliest reference that I can find to it being sung is in December 1876 in Liverpool at the New Star Music Hall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Liverpool Daily Post – Wednesday 20 December 1876<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Ashcroft describes the song as a New<\/em><\/strong> Character Song, <\/em>strongly suggesting that the song had recently been written. Most of Ashcroft’s original songs were written for him by his manager John J Stamford and after Stamford’s death in 1899, it was reported that<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Among the ditties which he wrote for the Alhambra proprietor [Ashcroft] <\/em>were such well-known ones as The Man you don’t meet every day<\/em> (the first song he ever wrote).<\/p>\nBallymena Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 27 May 1899<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The song was widely published in street literature – various broadsides and songsters include the song, originating on both sides of the Atlantic. Many of these are undated, but where convincing publication dates are given, they all come from the late 19th century, well after my suggested origin in 1876.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The longer text reproduced above is from an undated  English Broadside held by the National Library of Scotland. It seems to be the longest version available in that it has four rather than three stanzas. It has references to Bradford and Liverpool, so it’s reasonable to think that this is something like version that would be sung by WJ Ashcroft in the British Halls of the late 1870s. It’s conceivable that all subsequent versions, including the popular version sung by Sheila Stewart given above, could  be based on variations\/contractions of this.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The earliest printed versions from the US or Canada I have found so far, date from 1881 – sheet music published by William JA Lieder in New York and words in Volume 183 of Henry de Marsan Singers’ Journal<\/em>. These 2 versions are almost identical lyrically: they lose the last verse, change the names of people and places and increase the indicators of stage-Irish for example using the spelling “bhoy”. The sheet music states that the song was “written and composed by William Ashcroft<\/em>, sung with great success by Paddy Murphy of The Murphys”<\/em>. Despite being based in Britain and Ireland after 1876, Ashcroft still occasionally toured in the USA, and may well have sold the rights to sing it to other performers\/publishers. Stamford is not credited in the American version , but at that time it was not uncommon for sheet music to be published in America without fully crediting songwriters\/composers from Britain and Ireland.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
I have not attempted as yet to trace the evolution of the song in America and Canada, but I have found evidence of its popularity in the late 19th century on this side of the Atlantic. In Britain and Ireland contemporary newspaper reports show that the song was popular amongst amateur singers in the 1880s and 90s, but there are  no records of it being sung by amateurs before 1881 , which perhaps supports the contention that it was first written in the late 1870s. It appears in the lists of songs sung at the following events:<\/p>\n\n\n\n