''Pretty Saro'' (
Roud 417) is an English
folk ballad originating in the early 1700s. The song died out in
England by the mid eighteenth century but was rediscovered in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
(particularly in the
Appalachian Mountains) in the early twentieth century, where it had been preserved through oral traditions.
Cecil Sharp and later folklorists and proponents of the
folk revival helped keep songs such as Pretty Saro alive well into modern times.
Traditional Versions
The famous Appalachian musician
Jean Ritchie was recorded with her sisters in 1946 by
Mary Elizabeth Barnacle singing her family's traditional version on the song, before recording it on the album ''Jean Ritchie And
Doc Watson At Folk City'' (1963). The Appalachian traditional singer
Horton Barker
Horton Barker (August 23, 1889 – August 12, 1973) was an Appalachian traditional singer.
Barker was born in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, USA. Blind nearly all his life, Barker learned his unusually wide repertoire at the School for the Deaf an ...
also recorded a traditional version on his eponymous 1962 album. Several other traditional Appalachian versions were recorded, particularly by
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...
A few traditional
Ozark recordings were also made (many of which can be heard online), and one in
Toronto,
Canada.
Popular Recordings
Notable artists who have recorded ''Pretty Saro'' include:
During his
''Self Portrait'' sessions in March 1970 at Columbia Records' New York studio,
Bob Dylan ran through "Pretty Saro" six consecutive times. While none of those versions made the final cut for the album, the song remained in
Columbia's vault, until it was released on ''
Another Self Portrait'', a 35-track box set of songs cut for
Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait and
New Morning.
[Andy Greene]
"Bob Dylan's Lost 1970 Gem 'Pretty Saro' - Premiere"
''Rolling Stone'' Video (7 August 2013).
References
English folk songs
Bob Dylan songs
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