Darlin’ Cory

“Darlin’ Cory” (also “Darling Corey” or “Darling Cora”)  is a well-known American folk song about love, loss, and moonshine. It is similar in theme to “Little Maggie” and “The Gambling Man” but is not considered the same as those songs. T he earliest published version of “Darlin’ Corey” occurs as verses within the song “The Gambling Man”, collected from oral tradition by folklorist Cecil Sharp, as sung by Mrs. Clercy Deeton, at Mine Fork, Burnsville, N.C., on Sept. 19, 1918.  The text (without tune) was also published as “Little Cora” in Harvey H. Fuson’s Ballads of the Kentucky Highlands (London, 1931). A version from the singing of Aunt Molly Jackson appears in the book Our Singing Country (1941) by John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax.  It is also included in Folk Song, U.S.A. by John A. and Alan Lomax, Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1947. The first known commercial audio recording was made by Clarence Gill as “Little Corey” on January 6, 1927, but was rejected by the record company and never released.  A few months later, folk singer Buell Kazee recorded it as “Darling Cora” on April 20, 1927.   Later the same year, on July 29, 1927, at the famous Bristol Sessions an influential version was recorded by B. F. Shelton as “Darlin’ Cora” (Victor 35838).   Other early recordings are “Little Lulie” by Dick Justice (1929) and “Darling Corey”, released as a single by the Monroe Brothers in 1936.  In 1941, The Monroe Brothers’ version was included in a landmark 5-disc compilation, Smoky Mountain Ballads, produced and annotated by noted folklorist John A. Lomax (Victor Records). Whereas the earlier, “hillybilly” records had been marketed regionally, “Smoky Mountain Ballads” was intended for broad, urban audiences. It comprised reissues of ten comparatively recent commercially issued hillbilly recordings from the 1930s, including, in addition to the performance of “Darlin’ Cory” by the Monroe Brothers, songs by the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, Mainer’s Mountaineers, and other Southeastern performers. Smoky Mountain Ballads became a staple in the repertoires of 1940s and early ’50s folk music revival singers such as Pete Seeger, who was meticulous in crediting his sources and urged that people copy them and not him. That same year on May 28, 1941, Burl Ives also recorded “Darlin’ Cory” it in his debut album Okeh Presents the Wayfaring Stranger (issued August 1941 with liner notes by Alan Lomax).