"I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground" - Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1928) скачать в хорошем качестве

"I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground" - Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1928)

Pardon the break from jazz, but I wanted to post one of my desert island discs - a song about everything and nothing: "I Wish I Was A Mole in the Ground" by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. I first discovered this song in the late 80s when I was taking a summer Physics class at a local university (where I now work, as fate would have it). I used my library card to check out records and recorded them to cassette tape. I checked out a Folkways record called Folk Music U.S.A. and a later recording of this tune was on it. I then heard this earlier version on Harry Smith's legendary Anthology of American Folk Music. Something about it just really intrigued me and it became a real favorite. The song was performed for Lunsford by a North Carolina neighbor named Fred Moody in 1901. His mother asked him to learn the banjo so he could play it for her. Lunsford said it was the last request she made to him before she passed away. When I first started collecting 78s in 2017 I made a list of records I'd like to collect. The list was not long because I knew next to nothing about the music of the 78 rpm era: 1. Duke Ellington "Jack the Bear" 2. Fletcher Henderson "Phantom Fantasie" 3. This one. It took a while, but earlier this month a copy finally found its way into my collection. While my initial list is now completed, I now see that there are 2,772 records in my Discogs wantlist. 😂 I suppose desire is an unquenchable fire. Perhaps that's why the writer of this song wished to be a mole in the ground. Recorded in Ashland, Kentucky on February 6, 1928. Released as Brunswick 219. Credits: Bascom Lamar Lunsford - vocals, banjo