Folk Songs Dramatic and Dangerous

AMG Review of Folk Songs Dramatic and Dangerous

Bruce Eder
All Music Guide

Burl Ives' seventh album for Decca -- on which he is accompanied by orchestra part of the way -- draws on songs from Irish and Canadian as well as English, Scottish, and American traditions, with one lullaby ("Hugh Little Baby") included as well. There's one song, "From Here On Up, The Hills Don't Get Any Higher," that the notes say was passed to Ives by Carl Sandburg and the soon-to-be-blacklisted Earl Robinson. But probably the most unexpected track here is Ives' rendition of "Git Along Little Dogies" as part of a medley, in which he gives it a much more autumnal mood than one is accustomed to hearing in its more familiar cowboy-oriented versions. Another treat is the Alan Mills/Rose Bonne "I Know an Old Lady," which probably achieved a good deal of its familiarity as a camp song through Ives' interpretation here. And it ends with the haunting "I Wonder as I Wander," a suitable finish for any album.