Going Across the Sea
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Going Across the Sea", also known as "Across the Sea", "Going to the Army" and<br> "Gwine Across the Sea" is an old-time breakdown and song tune in A Major/Mixolydian or<br> D Major (Beisswenger & McCann). It is played in standard, AEad or ADae (Monday/Titon)<br> fiddle tunings. The parts are played AA'BB'.<br> This piece has been popular as a banjo/vocal number and has a reputation as a driving<br> banjo tune among musicians in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, although both Guthrie Meade<br> (1980) and Jeff Titon (2001) say the tune is identified with the Cumberland Plateau<br> region of south central Kentucky and middle Tennessee. Others have called it a fairly<br> common tune in the upper/central South. Titon relays that Mark Wilson told him that it<br> was frequently encountered in the Ozarks Mountains region of the Mid-West, where<br> Tennessee populations had migrated. Various sets of lyrics are often sung to it, most<br> being of the "floating" variety.<br> The piece was earliest recorded in 1924 by Tennessee's banjo-playing Uncle Dave Macon.<br> Bascom Lamar Lunsford was recorded for the Library of Congress playing "Goin' across the<br> Sea" in 1935.<br> Charles Wolfe says a "sea chanty" variant was published in 1939 by Jean Thomas in the<br> book Ballad Makin' in the Mountains of Kentucky, collected in northeastern Kentucky.<br> The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore links "Going across the Sea" to<br> "Wish I Had a Needle and Thread".<br> According to Meade in Country Music Sources (2002), the tune is closely related to Stephen Foster's<br> "Angelina Baker".<br> The banjo tablature is by John Letscher. His comment:<br> This is a conglomoration of versions, but lately from the Freight Hoppers.<br> It was printed in Beisswenger & McCann's Ozarks Fiddle Music (2008) and<br> Titon's Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Music (2001).<br> It was recorded by<br> Crook Brother's String Band on Nashville: the Early String Bands, vol. 2 (1976),<br> Clarence Ferril Band on Five Miles Out of Town: Traditional Music From the Cumberland<br> Plateau, vol. 2 (1984),<br> Jim Bowleson Railroading Through the Rocky Mountians (1992),<br> The Freight Hoppers on Mile Marker (2010),<br> H.L. Bandy on Wish I Had My Time Again (originally recorded in 1928),<br> Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford on Ramblin' Reckless Hobo: The Songs of Dick Burnett<br> and Leonard Rutherford (1975),<br> Bob Holt on Got a Little Home to Go to (1998),<br> The Crook Brothers (78 RPM) (1929) and<br> Uncle Dave Macon (78 RPM) (1926).<br>
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