This rollicking banjo arrangement, which Peggy herself describes as "compulsive playing," puts her own stamp on a folk classic widespread in American folk tradition. She says she learned the "Roving Gambler" from John A. and Alan Lomax's American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York: Macmillan, 1935) and her version is quite faithful to that source. In Peggy's version, the gambler courts his girl in Birmingham whereas the Lomax version situates the romance in Washington.
John Lomax acquired this song from one of his star informants, Slim Critchlow, who sang with the Utah Buckaroos, a cowboy band, on Salt Lake City radio stations KDYL and KSL. Apparently Critchlow and George "Hen" Fehr, who programmed and arranged music for the group, made a deliberate effort to collect and perform older forms cowboy and western material being edged out by the newer cowboy music of Hollywood movies. Critchlow's version is similar to those collected in many other parts of the United States and closely resembles a variant called the "Guerilla Man." Common British, Irish, or Australian variants ("The Roving Irishman," "The Rambling Irishman," "The Roving Journeyman," "The Rambling Journeyman," "With My Swag All on My Shoulder," and "True-Born Irish Man") bear little musical or textual resemblance to the "Roving Gambler," but some describe a young girl defiantly telling a disapproving mother than she will marry her footloose suitor. One verse of "The Roving Journeyman," from The Corries, a popular Scots singing group, resembles verses in the version Peggy sings:
I hadna' been in Glasgow toon a week but barely three
Before the provost's daughter went and fell in love wi' me.
She asked me for tae dine wi' her and took me by the hand
And she proudly told her mother that she loved the journeyman
"Ach, away ye go, ye silly maid, I'll hear ye speak no more,
How can ye love a journeyman ye've never seen before"
"Oh mother sweet, I do entreat, I love him all I can
And around the country I will go to see my journeyman!"
American antecedents are easier to trace. "The Gamboling Man" appears in "Delaney's Song Book No. 23" around 1900 and was republished, with repeated lines eliminated, by Carl Sandburg in his American Song Bag (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927). Sandburg assumes it was disseminated by the minstrel shows through the south and west, and stresses that the gambling motif is an American introduction: "while gamblers may gambol and gambolers may gamble, the English version carries no deck of cards." Sandburg includes three variants including "Yonder Comes My Pretty Little Girl," which concludes with:
I've gambled in the wildwoods
I've gambled in the lane
I've gambled in the wildwoods
And I never lost a game
The narrator shifts from male to female in the Roving Gambler and in some versions two narratives of a headstrong daughter and an adventurous gambler's are intertwined. Peggy foregrounds the girl's story, and her inclusion of an extra floating verse (before the last verse) emphasizes the girl's bold departure from home. This verse is sung from an onlooker's point of view and suggests the girl is rupturing ties not only with her family but her larger community:
See that train a-coming, she's a-coming round the bend
The prettiest girl as ever I saw is gone with the gambling man.
lyrics
ROVING GAMBLER
words, music: traditional USA
arrangement: Peggy Seeger
(5-string banjo tuning: lowC-G-middleC-D-middleC)
I am a roving gambler, gambled all around
Whenever I meet with a deck of cards I lay my money down.
I've gambled down in Washingtown, gambled over in Spain
I'm on my way to Birmingham to knock down my last game.
I had not been in Birmingham many more weeks than three
Till I fell in love with a pretty little girl, she fell in love with me.
She took me to her parlour, she cooled me with her fan
Whispered low in her mother's ear, "I love the gambling man."
O daughter, dearest daughter, how could you treat me so
To leave your dear old mother, with a gambler go?
O mother, dearest mother, you know I love you well
But the love I bear for the gambling man no human tongue can tell.
I would not marry a farmer, he's always in the rain;
The man I want is the gambling man who wears a big gold chain.
I would not marry a doctor, he's always away from home
All I want is a gambling man, he'll never leave me alone.
I would not marry a railroad man, here's the reason why:
I never seen a railroad man a-wouldn't tell his wife a lie.
I hear the train a coming, coming round the curve
A-whistling and a-blowing and a-straining every nerve.
Hear the train a-coming, she's coming round the bend
Prettiest girl as ever I saw's gone with the gambling man.
O mother, dearest mother, forgive me if you can
If ever you see me a-coming back it'll be with the gambling man.
Peggy is one of the most influential folk singers on either side of the Atlantic. She is Pete Seeger’s half-sister and Ruth
Crawford Seeger’s daughter; her first life partner was the English songwriter Ewan MacColl, who wrote First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for her. She has made more than 22 solo recordings to date. Please check ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com for other albums featuring Peggy....more
Three of the most talented folk/roots/acoustic artists currently at the very top of their game. Spoiler alert; is Spanish Lady actually about Catherine of Aragon or have I been reading too much Hilary Mantel? ***** bass_campdelta
Sweet harmonies & strummed melodies; the duo delve into decades-old folk, jazz, and country to find a timeless kind of love and connection. Bandcamp New & Notable May 23, 2018
Bright and skipping songs that foreground the sound of the banjo and fingerstyle guitar in music that feels timeless. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 5, 2020
