We're starting a new bimonthly blog post. Written by one of our archivists, Jeff Lewellen, this new blog post will focus on our music collection and Arkansas's music history. We're calling this new section of our blog, Jeff's Corner. Today, Jeff highlights Jimmy Driftwood's song, "The Battle of New Orleans."
Jimmy Driftwood and the “Battle of New
Orleans.”
Jimmy
Driftwood played a significant role in the establishment of the Ozark Folk
Center in Mountain View, Arkansas. Driftwood, born James Corbitt Morris in 1907
in Stone County, Arkansas, had enjoyed success as a song-writer and folk singer
during the 1950s . His signature song, “Battle of New Orleans” became an
international hit for the country singer Johnny Horton in 1959. Driftwood and
Horton won the Grammy award for Song of the Year in 1959. Jimmy Driftwood ran the music
program at the Ozark Folk Center for the first several years of its existence.
He would often serve as the MC of the weekend performances at the large
performance auditorium on the Park grounds. On August 27, 1975, Jimmy Driftwood
led the performance with his usual blend of stories and songs that made each of
his performances unique, informative and unpredictable. On this night, he
introduced his most famous song by explaining its origin.
“We believe
I wrote this song in 1945 for my history students in Snowball, Arkansas. I was
a school teacher and I hope you don’t
hold that against me. And I won the Grammy Award for this song. But all the
songs on that first album were chosen by those kids. But afterwards, the
experts stepped in and we never had the success we had with that first album.”
Driftwood
took the melody from an old fiddle tune titled “8th of January,”
which was written originally to commemorate the Battle of New Orleans.
Driftwood added his color ful lyrics for this history students as a means to
teach them about the War of 1812 and Andrew Jackson’s victory over the British
in New Orleans. The rendition Driftwood sings this particular night includes much
more of the colorful language and several lines of extra lyrics than the Johnny
Horton single.
“Well, I seen Mars Jackson walkin’
down the street
And a-talkin’ with a pirate by the
name of Jean Lafite.
He gave Jean a drink that he brung
from Tennessee
And the pirate said he’d help us
drive the English to the sea.”
“Well, the French told Andrew You
better run
For Packingham’s a comin’ with a
bullet in his gun.
Old Hickory said he don’t give a
damn
He’s a gonna whip the britches off
of Colonel Packinham.”
“Well, we’ll march back home but
we’ll never be content
Till we make Old Hickory the
people’s President.
And Every time we think about the
bacon and the beans,
We’ll think about the fun we had way
down in New Orleans.”
Driftwood
was a song collector, or “Song-catcher,” just as many others in the Ozarks
Region such
as Almeda Riddle. But he was also a singer-songwriter, much like Woody Guthie
and Leadbelly before him. Driftwood took the elements of traditional folk music
which normally have lyrics and melodies that go back so far, no one is certain
of their origins, and added his own
unique lyrics.
The live
recordings of performances at the Ozark Folk Center are part of the collection
given to the Arkansas History Commission. They can be accessed and listened to
onsite by contacting the Archivist On Duty in the Research Room.
