I Wonder As I Wander...

I Wonder as I Wander by John Jacob Niles"I Wonder as I Wander" has its origins in a song fragment collected on July 16, 1933 by folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles. While in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, Niles attended a fund raising meeting held by evangelicals. The Morgan family, revivalists all, were about to be ejected by the police, after having camped in the town square for some little time, coking, washing, hanging their wash from the Confederate monument and generally conducting themselves in such a way as to be classed a public nuisance. Preacher Morgan and his wife plead poverty; they had to hold one more meeting in order to buy enough gas to get out of town. It was then that Annie Morgan stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins.... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song. In his unpublished autobiography, he wrote of hearing the song: the girl, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic materialand a magnificent idea". Based on this fragment, Niles composed the version of "I Wonder as I Wander" that is known today, extending the melody to four lines and the lyrics to three stanzas. His composition was completed on October 4, 1933. Niles first performed the song on December 19, 1933 at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. It was originally published in Songs of the Hill Folk in 1934. Niles's "folk composition" process caused confusion among singers and listeners, many of whom believed this song to be anonymous in origin. Niles undertook lawsuits to establish its authorship and demanded royalties of other performers of the song. The song also hes been known by the title Appalachian Carol. Here is a link to youtube of this song...

attached is a tab for the song and an recording I made several years ago of this song. Hope you enjoy this next song to share...