Down on Penny's Farm - The Bentley Boys [Anthology Revisited - Song 25]
TL;DR -- Oppressed sharecroppers get zero breaks. Song has complex origins, extended family includes "Maggie's Farm" and "B-I-N-G-O". Author performs. Performers prove evasive.
Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of Anthology Revisited, the song-by-song journey through Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, released on Folkways Records in 1952, and reissued by Smithsonian Folkways in 1997.
In this installment, we examine the dismal plight of sharecroppers with “Down on Penny’s Farm” performed by the Bentley Boys and recorded on October 23, 1929 during Frank Walker’s second round of Johnson City Sessions.
With this song, we’ve officially entered the final mini-theme on Volume One - Ballads. As I’ve mentioned in previous pieces, I see Side D of Volume One having an overarching theme of “Hard times”, and the theme is even split into two subthemes: “Transportation Disasters” and “Agricultural Woes”. We concluded “Transportation Disasters” with the previous installment on “Kassie Jones”, and now we begin the “Agricultural Woes” half of Side D with a song about the life of a sharecropper.
It turns out that this song has tangled roots in several other songs, which isn’t an uncommon occurrence in the Anthology of American Folk Music. To unravel it all, we’ll use Harry Smith’s Bibliography and some additional resources to explore the song’s history, and try to trace its origins as far back as we can. During this examination, you’ll even get to see and hear your author, as I make my first (and second) recorded appearances in this series, performing a couple of songs that emerge in the discussion, but don’t seem to have ever been recorded.
Once we unravel the song’s long and tangled history, we’ll unpack “Down on Penny’s Farm” itself. This is an incredibly well-written song about the harsh realities of sharecropper living, that requires some unpacking, and a little speculation. There isn’t much to say about the Performers, but I’ll provide you with basically everything that is known about the “Bentley Boys”.
For a song with such unknowable performers, we’ve got a surprisingly full slate today, but before we get to any of that, let’s look at Harry Smith’s headline.
RENTERS CAUGHT BY POVERTY ON GEORGE PENNY’S FARM PICTURE LANDLORD AS MISER, THIEF, AND LIAR
This song is loaded with words, and Harry does a superb job compressing all those words into a single sentence. The song goes through a litany of complaints about life on Penny’s farm, and to hear the renters tell it, George Penny was the kind of guy who’d rob you blind and pretend like he’d done you a favor. The song catalogs the renter’s complaints, and Harry Smith’s headline categorizes those complaints very neatly.
So let’s give the song a listen, and hear about the woes of the sharecropper. Here’s “Down on Penny’s Farm” by the Bentley Boys, recorded on October 23, 1929 in Johnson City, Tennessee.
NOTE: To hear all the recordings referenced in this article, visit the Anthology Revisited 25 - Penny’s Farm playlist on YouTube.
Lyrics
Come you ladies and you gentlemen, and listen to my song,
I'll sing it to you right, but you might think it's wrong;
May make you mad, but I mean no harm,
It's just about the renters on Penney's farm.
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.You move out on Penney's farm,
Plant a little crop of 'bacco and a little crop of corn;
Come around to see you, gonna plit and plot,*
'Til you get yourself a mortgage on everything you got.
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.Haven't George Penney got a flatterin’ mouth?
Move you to the country in a little log house;
Got no windows but the cracks in the wall;
He'll work you all the summer and he’ll rob you in the fall.
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.You’ll go in the fields, you'll work all day,
Way after night but you get no pay;
Promise you meat or a little bucket of lard;
It's hard to be a renter on Penney's farm.
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.Here's George Penney, he'll come into town
With a wagon load of peaches, not a one of ‘em sound;
He's got to have his money or somebody's check;
Pay him for a bushel and you don't get a peck.
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.George Penney's renters they'll come into town
With their hands in their pockets and their head hanging down.
Go in the store and the merchant will say,
"Your mortgage is due and I'm lookin’ for my pay."
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.Down in his pocket with a trembling hand,
"Can't pay you all, but I'll pay you what I can."
Then to the telephone, the merchant made a call,
They'll put you on the chain gang, an’ you don't pay it all.
It's a hard times in the country,
Out on Penney's farm.* This is the transcription referenced by Smith in the Anthology’s liner notes, and is drawn from Our Singing Country - Folk Songs and Ballads by John and Alan Lomax (Lomax IV in Smith’s discography). In the Lomax text, the song appears with the title “Hard Times in the Country”.
The Song
This is the first known recording of the earliest known text “Down on Penny’s Farm” (or “Hard Times in the Country” as the song was titled in Lomax IV). Despite the lack of prior texts or recordings, the song has roots in multiple songs. In this section, we’re going into research mode to see just how deep those roots go, and try to get a handle on how all the pieces came together. I’ll warn you at the outset, this is a lengthy examination involving multiple source texts.
Part One - Hard Times in the Country
In his liner notes, Harry Smith didn’t offer much commentary for this song. He merely indicated that the song is a “regionalized recasting of an earlier song, ‘Hard Times’”, and stated a transcription was published in the Lomax book. (See the Lyrics section above for that transcription.)
There are lots of “hard times” songs, and this portion of the article chronicles the search for the version of “Hard Times” from which the tune for “Down on Penny’s Farm” was derived, which, for convenience’s sake, I call “the Lost “Hard Times”” in this article. (This is done to improve readability because the more accurate phrase of “the yet-to-be-determined version of “Hard Times” from which “Down on Penny’s Farm” derived its tune” is way too wordy and clumsy. The Lost “Hard Times” seems a simpler textual shortcut for this context. Regarding the Lost “Hard Times”, I’ve set a few expectations of what it might contain.
A more generalized theme. Smith refers to this as a “regionalized recasting of an earlier song ‘Hard Times’”. To me, this would suggest that the Lost “Hard Times” isn’t about farming, but rather, about hard times in general.
Similar textual structure. This is one of the key elements. This is a “regionalized recasting”, but it’s unclear just how much recasting was done. Since this is the case, I’ll search for versions of “Hard Times” with similar textual structures, specifically as
the same number of syllables per line
the same number of lines per stanza
similarly structured refrains.
Should we find a “Hard Times” that matches up exactly with the “Down on Penny’s Farm” structure, then we’ll have likely found the Lost “Hard Times”.
Similar tune. This ties in with the similar structure, but takes it one step further. Finding a “Hard Times” with an identical tune would all but guarantee that we’ve likely found our source.
Smith’s bibliography includes four entries, which we’ll explore momentarily. But before we hit the stacks in search of the Lost “Hard Times” in books, I want to briefly discuss a pair of “Hard Times” songs that predate “Down on Penny’s Farm” and all the other songs we’ll examine.
Hard Times Of Old England (1700’s)
The first “Hard Times” song in English appears to be “Hard Times of Old England”, a song from the 1700’s which originated in (surprise!) England.
A recording of the song and the text of the lyrics are below. This version below was recorded by the Band of Hope in 1994. While there are earlier recordings of this song., I like the performance, and the lyrics are relatively easy to understand.
(NOTE: Steeleye Span’s version of the song rocks, but for the purposes analysis, it’s easier for this hard of hearing person to stick with more traditional instrumentation.)
Hard Times of Old England
1
Come all working people who travel alone
And pray come and tell me where the work has all gone
Long time I have travelled and never found noneChorus (repeated after each verse):
And it’s oh the hard times of old England
In England very hard times2
Provisions you buy from a shop, it is true
But if you’ve got no money, there’s none there for you
So what are poor folk and their families to do3
You go to the shop and you ask for a job
They answer you there with a shake and nod
’Tis enough to make poor folk to turn out and rob4
You see working people a-walking the street
From morning till night for employment to seek
And scarcely they have any shoes to their feet5
Soldiers and sailors have just come from war
Been fighting for Queen and for country sure
Come home to be starved, better have stayed where they wereSOURCE: https://mainlynorfolk.info/copperfamily/songs/hardtimesofoldengland.html
Upon spinning the track, the first thing you’ll notice is that on the musical front, “Hard Times of Old England” and “Down on Penny’s Farm” have nothing in common. But upon review, there are some textual and structural elements shared by both songs that are worth a mention:
An opening verse welcoming the listener
Lines within verses of roughly the same syllabic length.
Refrains of similar syllabic length referencing “hard times” in a specific location
A verse about impoverished people going to the store without enough money to make a purchase. (See verse 2 above).
While these similarities are present, this is not the Lost “Hard Times”. The connections, nebulous though they may be, are quite plentiful, and I can’t write off as entirely coincidental, but it’s NOT the source we’re seeking.
But it does make one wonder if the Lost “Hard Times” is an Americanized version of “Hard Times of Old England” or was it inspired to some degree by the song? Perhaps... Perhaps not.
Hard Times Come Again No More (1854)
The first American song specifically on the topic of “hard times” seems to be “Hard Times Come Again No More”, a parlor song composed by Stephen Foster in 1854 and published in 1855. This song has entered the repertoire of many folk and folk-adjacent artists over the years, but it is not a folk song, and apart from two obvious words, the song has no discernible relationship to “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
“Hard Times Come Again No More” is, however, an exceptional song composed by a legendary American songwriter, and one worthy of mention for the benefit of readers who may be unfamiliar with the song and its author.
The song was composed in 1854 by Stephen Foster (1826-1864), the first person in the United States known to have earned a living primarily as a popular songwriter. In his life, Foster wrote around 300 songs, but his success as a songwriter depends entirely upon how one chooses to measure success.
If a successful songwriter is one whose songs are such well-crafted expressions of universal human sentiments that they continue to be sung more than 150 years after the author’s death, then Stephen Foster was an absolute success. However, if a songwriter’s success is measured in purely financial terms, then Foster’s death in 1864 with a mere 37 cents to his name would make him a dismal failure.
Many artists have recorded spectacular versions of this song, and a quick YouTube search may yield a version by an artist whose work you especially like. I found several such recordings, but since this song’s inclusion in this piece is more of a sidebar than anything, I don’t want to bombard you with recordings that are irrelevant to our discussion. Instead, I’ve selected a single performance that I quite enjoy. Here’s Mavis Staples from March, 2004.
Searching Harry Smith’s bibliography for the Lost “Hard Times”
While I’ve provided a couple of songs that predate “Down on Penny’s Farm” and include the words “hard times” in their titles and texts, the Lost “Hard Times” remains at large. The next stop in our search is the Bibliography Harry Smith provided in the Anthology of American Folk Music’s 1952 liner notes. The Bibliography contains four texts, and perhaps the Lost “Hard Times” is hiding in one of those books.
Gardner - 443
The first bibliographic entry is for Gardner - 443, which refers to Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan by Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering. The text is available on the Internet Archive and contains a “Hard Times” that was collected in 1934 from a person who learned the song from a person who learned the song during one of Grover Cleveland’s terms as president (1885-89 or 1893-97). The text (quoted below) includes the introductory text and sheet music.
HARD TIMES
WITH a theme which permits of wide variation in application, this song is a curious composite. Stanzas 1 and 7 are analogous to stanzas I and 6 in Lomax, pp. 103-105; stanzas 2, 5, and 7, to stanzas 9, 10, and 13 in Cox, pp. 511-513. Cox gives references to English and American broadsides and collections, no text of which corresponds closely with the Michigan form.
The present version was obtained in 1934 by Mrs. Maude Simpson, Detroit, from the singing of her grandfather, Mr. Seth Evilsizer, Alger; he had learned the song from Mr. John Gibson, Alma, Michigan, during Grover Cleveland's administration.
1.
Come listen a while and give ear to my song
Concerning these hard times, it won't take you long;
How the people each other they try for to bite,
And in cheating each other they think they do right, they think they do right;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.2
The baker he'll cheat you in the bread that you eat,
And so will the butcher in the weight of his meat;
He'll tip up his scales and make them go down,
And he'll swear it is weight when it lacks half a pound, it lacks half a pound;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.3
The miller he'll tell you he'll grind for your toll
And do the work as well as he can for his soul;
But when your back's turned, and the dish in his fist,
He'll give you the toll and himself keep the grist, himself keep the grist;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.4
The landlord he'll feed your horse oats, corn, and hay,
And when your back's turned, he will take them away.
For oats he'll give chaff, and for corn he'll give bran,
And yet he will holler, "I'm too honest a man, too honest a man";
And so it is hard times wherever you go.5
The tinker he'll tell you he'll mend all your ware
For a little or nothing, some ale, or some beer;
Before he begins, he'll get half drunk or more
And in mending one hole he will punch twenty more, will punch twenty more;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.6
Next is the ladies, the sweet little dears,
So fine at the balls and the parties appear,
With whalebones and corsets themselves they will squeeze
Till you'll have to unlace them before they can sneeze, before they can sneeze;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.7
The doctor he'll tell you he'll cure all your ills
With his puffs and his powders, his syrups and squills;
He'll give you a dose that will make you grow fat,
Or he'll give you a dose that will leave you but your boots and your hat, your boots and your hat;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.8
You've listened a while and give ear to my song,
Therefore you can't say I've sung anything wrong.
If there's anyone here from my song takes offense,
They can go to the devil and seek recompense, and seek recompense;
And so it is hard times wherever you go.
I wanted to hear this music, to see how it compared with “Down on Penny’s Farm”. I could tell from the text and the sheet music that the tune wasn’t the same, but I wanted to hear it for myself to look for similarities.
Using the sheet music provided by Garner, I created a MIDI score for the tune and played it through a couple of virtual instruments in my recording software. The results can be heard in the video below. The video isn’t quite a “follow the bouncing ball” version of the lyrics, but each line of the song appears on the screen in time for you to read (or sing) along with the music. This isn’t designed to be a mind-blowing musical experience. It’s quite rudimentary, but it serves its purpose and provides an idea of what this “Hard Times” sounded like.
So, how does this song relate to the Lost “Hard Times”? Lyrically, this version is general in its purview, and contains an introductory verse that welcomes the listener, but the similarities end there.
The tune is absolutely nothing like the melody of “Down on Penny’s Farm”, and I can conclusively state that this is not the Lost “Hard Times”.
Hudson - 215
The second source is Hudson - 215. Folksongs of Mississippi and Their Background by Arthur Palmer Hudson. The lyrical similarities between this text and Gardner are pronounced, and based on these two sources, I suspect that our Lost “Hard Times” will contain similar observations. Hudson’s text doesn’t fit the Gardner melody, and the verses could be sung to the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm”, but the refrain is too brief to be an exact match.
Hard Times
Communicated by Mr. A. H. Burnett, who obtained it from Mr. G. P. Strider (see "Jack Donahoo"). See Cox, No. 183; Colcord, P. 100; Lomax, p. 103
1
Come listen a while, I'll sing you a song
Concerning the times-it will not be long—
When everybody is striving to buy
And cheating each other, I cannot tell why.
And it's hard, hard times.2
From father to mother, from sister to brother,
From cousin to cousin, they're cheating each other.
Since cheating has grown to be so much in fashion,
I believe to my soul it will ruin the whole nation.
And it's hard, hard times.3
Now here is a talker-by talking he eats;
And so does the butcher by selling his meats;
He'll toss the steelyards and weigh it right down,
And swear it's just right if it lacks forty pounds.
And it's hard, hard times.4
And there is the merchant—honest, we're told—
Whatever he sells you, my friend, you are sold.
Believe what he tells you, and don't feel surprise
If you find yourself cheated half out of your eyes.
And it's hard, hard times.5
And there is the lawyer: you plainly will see
He'll plead your case for a very large fee:
He'll law you and tell you that wrong is right
And make you believe that a black horse is white.
And it's hard, hard times.6
And there is the doctor I like to forgot:
I believe to my soul he's the worst of the lot;
He'll tell you he'll cure you for half you possess,
And when you're buried he'll take all the rest.
And it's hard, hard times.
Lomax - II - 332
The third source (Lomax - II - 332 in Smith’s notes) is John and Alan Lomax’s American Ballads and Folk Songs. The “Hard Times” in this book consists solely of lyrics, and appears in the MISCELLANY section of the book and offers no music, notes, or further information on the lyrics.
As with Gardner and Hudson, we have an introductory verse welcoming the listener, and a more general purview. As with Hudson, the verses could be sung to the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm”, but the refrain won’t fit. The refrain could be forced to fit with some adjustment but that’s not how the song appears.
It’s worth mentioning that the text here is almost identical to Hudson, and not far off from Gardner. This bolsters my notion that the Lost “Hard Times’ uses similar verses, but does something different with the refrain.
HARD TIMES
1
Come listen awhile, and I'll sing you a song
Concerning the times (it will not be long)
When everybody is striving to buy,
And cheating each other, I cannot tell why
And it's hard, hard times.2
From father to mother, from sister to brother,
From cousin to cousin, they're cheating each other.
Since cheating has grown to be so much the fashion,
I believe to my soul it will run the whole nation
And it's hard, hard times.3
Now there is the talker, by talking he eats,
And so does the butcher by killing his meats.
He'll toss the steelyards, and weigh it right down,
And swear it's just right if it lacks forty pound
And it's hard, hard times.4
And there is the merchant, so honest, we're told.
Whatever he sells you, my friend, you are sold.
Believe what I tell you, and don't be surprised
To find yourself cheated half out of your eyes
And it's hard, hard times.5
And there is the lawyer, you plainly will see,
He will plead your case for a very large fee,
He'll law you and tell you the wrong side is right,
And make you believe that a black horse is white
And it's hard, hard times.6
And there is the doctor, I like to forgot,
I believe to my soul he's the worst of the lot.
He'll tell you he'll cure you for half you possess,
And when you're buried he'll take all the rest
And it's hard, hard times.7
And there's the old bachelor, all hated with scorn,
He's like an old garment all tattered and torn.
The girls and the widows all toss him a sigh,
And think it quite right, and so do I
And it's hard, hard times.8
And there's a young widow, coquettish and shy,
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye;
But when she gets married she'll cut quite a dash,
She'll give him the reins and she'll handle the cash
And it's hard, hard times.9
And there's the young lady I like to have missed,
And I believe to my soul she'd like to be kissed.
She'll tell you she loves you with all pretense
And ask you to call again some time hence
And it's hard, hard times.
SOURCE: https://archive.org/details/americanballadsf00lomax/page/334/mode/1up
Lomax - IV - 287
This is “Down on Penny’s Farm” with the title of “Hard Times in the Country”. The text in the Lyrics section of this article was drawn from this source.
Beyond the Bibliography
We’ve exhausted the sources in Harry Smith’s Bibliography, but we’ve not located the Lost “Hard Times” yet.
The texts from Gardner, Lomax II, and Hudson are so similar to each other that I can say with a high degree of confidence that the Lost “Hard Times” probably has similar verses about different types of people and how they each manipulate situations for their own gain.
In fact, the Lost “Hard Times” could be a variant of Lomax II or Hudson with a modified refrain, but I’m not sold on this idea and feel more research is needed. But since we’ve exhausted Smith’s sources, so where do we go from here?
Gardner referenced John Harrington Cox’s Folk Songs of the South, which is available on the Internet Archive., so let’s see what it has to say.
Cox - 511
Sadly, the version of “Hard Times” that Cox provides doesn’t get us any closer to the Lost “Hard Times”. It has a more general purview, and the verses could be sung to the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm”, but like Lomax II and Hudson, the refrain doesn’t fit. There’s no introductory verse to welcome the listener, but the version contains two different versions of “Hard Times” squished together as one, which does give us another option for verses the Lost “Hard Times” might contain.
HARD TIMES
This piece consists of parts of two songs run together. The second portion, beginning with stanza 7, is a part of "Hard Times," for which see Beadle's Dime Song Book No. 1 (cop. 1860), p. 24;….
Communicated by Mr. Fred Smith, Glenville, Gilmer County, 1917; obtained from Mr. Farwell A. Bell.
1
Last Saturday night I went by the house,
And through the dark window I crept like a mouse ;
I knocked at the door, and my love let me in,
And through the dark window I soon entered in.
And it's hard times.2
Such laughing and chatting as we did make,
I waked the old folks out of their sleep ;
First said he, and then said she:
"What impudent scoundrel is this before me?"
And it 's hard times.3
"O here is my heart and here is my hand,
Hold your wild temper till you know who I am ;
Jamieson Wilks, I go by that name,
And courting your daughter is the purpose I came."
And it's hard times.4
O you are so old, and she is so young,
You will get suited, and she will get stung;
You are so old, and she is so young,"
She up with the broomstick and at me she come.
And it's hard times.5
Out of the window in the ice and the snow,
I mounted my horse and away I did go ;
The blood it run down my shins in great grooves,
For I had never been beaten with a broomstick before.
And it's hard times.6
Come all ye young men, take warning from me,
Be careful when girls you go for to see;
Unless like me you'll meet with your doom,
Get beat like the devil and flogged with the broom.
And it's hard times.7
O there is a young gent as all of you know,
A-courting the girls he is sure to go ;
The old folks will simper and sniver and grieve,
Say, treat him well, gals, and he'll come back again.
And it's hard times.8
And there is the young miss, the nice little dear,
At the ball and the party how nice she will appear !
Whale-boned corset her ribs do they squeeze,
And she'll have to unlace before she can sneeze.
And it's hard times.9
O there is the tinner, who mends all our ware,
For something to drink, ale or beer;
But before he is through he is half drunk or more,
And while mending one hole, he’ll punch twenty more.
And it's hard times.10
O there is the baker, who bakes what we eat,
And there is the butcher, who sells us our meat;
It's up with the scales and let them come down,
And swears it's good weight when it lacks half a pound.
And it's hard times.11
O there is the sheriff, who thinks himself nice ;
He comes to your house with a pack of lies,
Takes all your property he can sell,
Gets drunk on the money when you are doing well.
And it's hard times.12
O there is the judge, who thinks himself true,
He sits on the bench and stares at you ;
For twenty-five cents he would send you to jail,
And for five dollars he would send you to hell.
And it's hard times.13
O there is the doctor I almost forgot;
I really believe he's the worst of the lot;
He says he will cure you for half you possess,
And then he will kill you and take all the rest.
And it's hard times.
Beadle’s Dime Song Book No. 1 (1860)
Cox’s introductory text gave us yet another avenue to explore in the form of Beadle’s Dime Song Book No. 1. The text is available in the Internet Archive, and the lyrics are in the image below. (NOTE: To accommodate readers who use screen reader software, the text of this version appears beneath the image.)
Hard Times
Listen awhile and give ear to my song
Concerning these hard times, 'twill not take you long,
How every one tries each other to bite,
And in cheating each other they think they do right.
Nothing but hard times.There are some young men, which you very well know,
To see pretty girls they are sure to go;
The old folks will giggle, they will laugh, and they'll grin,
Crying, "Use him well, Sal, or he'll not come again.""The baker will cheat you in the bread that you eat,
And so will the butcher, in the weight of his meat;
He'll tip up the steelyards, and make them go down,
And swears it is weight, when it lacks a half pound.The next are the ladies, the sweet little dears,
At the balls and the parties, how nice they appear;
With whalebones and corsets themselves they hey will squeeze,
You have to unlace them before they can sneeze.Next is the tinker, he'll mend all your ware,
For little or nothing, some ale or some beer;
But before he begins, begins, he'll get half drunk or more,
And in stopping one hole, why he'll punch twenty more.The judge on his bench, so honest and true,
He'll stare at a man, as though he'd look him through;
He'll send him a year or six months to the jail,
And for five dollars more, why he'll go your bail.Then next is the doctor, he'll cure all your ills,
With his puffs and his powders, his syrups, and squills,
He'll give you a dose that will make you grow fat,
Or some pills that will leave you but your boots and your hat.The ladies must all have their silks and their laces,
And things they call bonnets, to show off their faces;
But their figure, however, can never be seen,
For they are hoop'd like a barrel, with French crinoline.The last is the sheriff, who thinks himself wise,
He'll come to your house with a big pack of lies;
He'll take all your property that he can sell,
And get drunk on the money, that's doing right well,
In these hard times.
The lyrics here are not far off from those found in sources from Smith’s bibliography, and this version is probably closer to the Lost “Hard Times” than Cox, due to the presence of the introductory verse. As with other versions, the verses here could fit with the tune, but the refrain (where it appears) does not exactly fit.
What have we learned?
We’ve managed to find several songs called “Hard Times”, which could fit the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm” albeit with some modification to the refrain. The problem is that if modifications are necessary, then the text (as printed) doesn’t really fit the tune.
This is frustrating, and you may wonder why I keep droning on about how the tune should fit after providing multiple examples of songs with near-identical designs which almost fit. One would think by how that I would surrender and conclude that “Down on Penny’s Farm” used a different tune from “Hard Times” and the mythical Lost “Hard Times” I keep talking about is just a myth of my own invention.
Under normal circumstances, this is precisely the conclusion I would draw, but these aren’t normal circumstances because we have another artifact to support my belief that some version of “Hard Times” used the same music as “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
The artifact of which I speak is a text from 1861 with lyrics said to have been performed to the tune of “Hard Times”. This song fits the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm” perfectly, which is why I’ve had such a hard time letting go of this Lost “Hard Times” notion. Let’s check it out.
The Soldier’s Complaint (1861)
In the closing of each article in the Anthology Revisited series, I state that my work is simply building upon the work of others those who’ve come before me. What follows is a perfect example of what I mean.
While researching this piece, I found a fantastic thread on mudcat.org about “Down on Penny’s Farm”. A comment in that thread led me to a song called “The Soldier’s Complaint”, which Ephraim Shay transcribed in his journal on December 16, 1861 in Paducah, Kentucky where he was serving in the Civil War. Shay stated that the lyrics were sung to the tune of “Hard Times”. If you examine the text and watch the video below, you’ll see that these lyrics could have been sung to the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm”, and I’m more certain than ever that some variant of “Hard Times” used this exact tune.
(NOTE: The text below has been slightly modified from the original transcription by this author. I removed notes indicating page breaks contained in the original diary, added the refrain to each verse, corrected a few typos.)
The Soldier's Complaint
By J.E. Richardson Co F Infantry
Tune
Hard Times1
Come listen kind friends awhile to my song.
And I will unfold a tale of my wrongs.
Of labor's severe and likewise the (hell)
Endured by the soldiers on old Muldrough Hill.
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say2
We rise in the morning at five of the clock
And make our hard bed of the butts of cornstalks
Then down in the valley we all trudge again
To wash off the filth that in camp we have gained
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say
3
Then when we have washed we climb up the Hill
And every man carries his legs at his will
But once at the summit our strength is all gone
And go fast or slow we are fain to sit down
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say4
We rest half an hour then our labor begins
And the first we commence at is working our chins
Or in terms more explicit that you'll understand
We partake of a breakfast the cream of the land
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say5
And now give redoubled attention awhile
And I'll dish up the breakfast in excellent style
So strengthen your courage and stomach also
For the sumptuous repast you're about to review
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say6
The first on the hill in age and in strength
Is a side of fat bacon full three feet in length
With a crust on the surface to keep in the oil
A plump inch in thickness of Kentucky soil
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say7
Then as to it's age we are all in the dark
But suppose it was smoked in the flues of the Ark
And I think 'tis the case but don’t recollect
Each man as he eats doffs his hat in respect
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say8
The next thing in order are crackers so hard
Cut out with a chisel in shape like a card
Punched full of small holes to make them more brittle
To crumb in the coffee that’s stewed in the kettle
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say9
The kettle so rusty and dirty to match
Not fit to make slop for the very old scratch
But that which a digger or dog wouldn't eat
Is thought by the soldier a deuce of a treat
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say10
But kind friends have patience don't think I have done
The' I've dealt out the nations I've only begun
For when we've ate breakfast we trudge off to work
To stand upon guard or to dig in the dirt
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say11
On guard we must go every third day or less
Where all sorts of men are mixed up in a mess
And when off of our posts we endeavor to sleep
And get ourselves curled all up in a heap
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say12
Just as we get into a comfortable snooze
Along comes the Sergeant and raises the deuce
And every poor fellow from yonder to here
He pulls them and shakes them and yells in their ear
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say13
He man says the Sergeant what is your relief
First Second or Third? Ah! man are you deaf?
And when the man grumbles about his hard fare
The officers tell him this hard it is fair
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say14
Full twenty-four hours we've expelled from the camps
To sit around the fire or lie down in the damp
And when we're released from our labor severe
We don't feel like stirring again in a year
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say15
Yet when we get home in our tents at length
And lay ourselves down to recruit our lost strength
As we shut up our eyes and get ready to snow
Along comes the Corporal and peeps in the door
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say16
"Say boys I want four men to go for some water
Come! get up and go with me-hurrah don't loiter"
And then from our couches still rubbing our eyes
We have to fall out and fall in at our size
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say17
And when we get back and begin to feel good
Again comes the Corporal with "Hurrah for wood"
And we find the relief which has been our desire
Is like jumping from frying pan into the fire
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say18
Altho were worn out by hard work and no sleep
We're obliged when on guard awake to keep
For if the Grand Rounds comes round to our post
And catches us napping our honor is lost
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say19
For when he has gone his way on the rounds
As soon as he gets to the guards camping grounds
He sends out a Sergeant and two ugly mugs
And clap the poor Sentinel straight into the jug
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say20
There are two or three items I would not forget
And ere closing story I'll mention them yet
A likeness from life I'll endeavor to draw
Of evils arising from under the law
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say21
The first is the Suttler who keeps in his shop
A choice lot of dainties to mix with our slop
Cakes, candies and pies, nuts, sugars, and trees
Eggs, butter, and spices, with crackers and cheese
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say22
In short on his shelves as you run you may read
He keep for the boys everything they don't need
But for ought that is nee off all through humbly you pray
He replies we don't keep it because it don't pay
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say23
Then to crown the whole matter our officers scold
Because we take tickets instead of the gold
The gold Uncle Sam keep locked in his chest
And we ca'ant get a quarter by trying our best
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say24
And then there's another sublime institution
For testing the strength of a mans constitution
I allude to the hospital over the way
Where sickness and death are supreme in their sway
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say25
If I were a servant instead of a soldier
I'd sift the whole matter before a day older
For there's one thing I've learned among nature's laws
Tis that every effect has a definite cause
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say26
And were I permitted an inference to draw
According to natures immutable law
I'd over full in view of the hospital walls
That the slops and Sutter have peopled its walls
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say27
Were it not my kind friends that would tire your patience
I'd open it's walls for you all to admire
But fearing already I've kept you too long
I'll not try you farther by lengthening my song
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say28
I'll say naught of the nursing or medical skill
Which the boys must receive with or without will
How long since the mansion's been graced by a boom
Nor of twenty poor fellows crammed into a room
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I say29
And now my dear friends let me say in conclusion
That soldiering is a most fatal illusion
And if you'd be happy contented and rich
Just take my advice and keep out of the ditch
It's hard times on Muldrough Hill
It's hard times I sayWritten at Paducah Dec 16th/61 While I now write a number of boys are just outside my tent enjoying a cotillion. The music is excellent. About an hour ago all the camps within hearing were hurrahing with all their might just for fun. Sounded funny. Pleasant evening”
SOURCE: https://web.archive.org/web/20060717025836/http://www.ephraimshay.com/diary186162.html
Based on this text’s near-perfect alignment with “Down on Penny’s Farm”, and the clearly stated fact that the song was sung to the tune of “Hard Times”, I’m pretty well convinced the song’s melody is from the Lost “Hard Times” from which “Down on Penny’s Farm” drew its tune.
Final Notes on Melodies
We know that Gardner used a different melody from “Down on Penny’s Farm”. The versions presented by Lomax II, Hudson, Cox, and Beadle also use a different melody than the one Gardner provided. (For proof, go back up and try to sing the variations from Lomax II, Hudson, Cox, or Beadle to the YouTube recording of Gardner’s tune, and you’ll see what I mean. There’s serious incongruity.)
As mentioned, the Lomax II, Hudson, Cox, and Beadle variants will fit the tune of “Down on Penny’s Farm” very nicely until the refrain arrives, at which point the refrain is several syllables shorter than the refrains of both “The Soldier’s Complaint” and “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
I’ve mentioned that these texts could work is the refrain was modified, so I decided to give it a shot, to see what would happen if I sang the refrain twice.
Since Beadle’s 1860 text is our oldest, and since “The Soldier’s Complaint” came from the following year, it made sense to performed Beadle with the refrain sung twice.
Here’s what happened.
The Lost “Hard Times” from which “Penny’s Farm” got its tune.
After conducting the experiment in the video above, I’m convinced that the Lost “Hard Times” is Beadle with the refrain repeated.
None of the other variants (Lomax II, Cox, or Hudson) fit quite this easily, but they too can be made to work without too much pretzling.
Cox can fit if the refrain “It’s hard times” is sung three times.
Lomax II and Hudson both use the refrain of “It’s hard, hard times”, which can also fit if sung thrice, but which could prove a bit tricky. It could be made far less clumsy if sung “It’s hard times. It’s hard times. It’s hard, hard times.” but the texts don’t suggest such a refrain.
Beadle’s text from 1860 is the oldest dated version, the only version confirmed to have been existed in the 1800’s, and the only one that fits easily by simply singing the refrain twice, so I’m comfortable with my conclusion that Beadle is the root here, and thus, the Lost “Hard Times”
But, even with this, I still felt a little weird about the whole repeated refrain thing, and needed to convince myself further. I sat down with “The Soldier’s Complaint” from 1861 (which claims to use the tune of “Hard Times” and seems to have used the exact music from “Down on Penny’s Farm”) and it suddenly dawned on me that the song has a partially repeated refrain of “It’s hard times on Muldrough hill / It’s hard times I say”.
I then asked myself this question. “If a song derived from “Hard Times” has a partially repeated refrain, why can’t the version of “Hard Times” from which it came have a repeated refrain?” At that pointed, I relented and am finally comfortable saying that based on the evidence we have available, Beadle's 1860 version of “Hard Times” (with the refrain repeated) is the likeliest the source for the tune of both “The Soldier’s Complaint” and “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
The final verdict, of course, is yours to decide, and I suppose it could have been any of these sources (except Gardner), but since Beadle is our oldest version, that’s the one I’m sticking with.
Part Two - Down on Penny’s Farm
So far, I’ve focused exclusively on the first half of the refrain and completely ignored the second half. “Down on Penny’s Farm” draws from more than the “Hard Times” well of songs. It’s also connected to other songs that discuss occurrences “down on someone’s farm”.
Peach Blow Farm
The aforementioned fantastic thread on mudcat.org led me to a different thread about a minstrel song called “Balm of Gilead” (not to be confused with the hymn “There is a Balm in Gilead”), which mentions events that happen on someone’s farm.
This minstrel song was documented in 1861, and on October 13, 1916, it was recorded by Harry C. Browne on vocals and banjo, backed by an orchestra for Columbia Records in New York City. The session logs don’t indicate the composition of the orchestra. This is the earliest song I’ve encountered to discuss events down on someone’s farm.
BALM OF GILEAD
Arr. H. T. Bryant 1861
Oh, we ain't, going home any more,
Oh, we ain't going home any more,
Oh, we ain't going home any more, .....
Down't the peach blow farm.
Balm of Gilead,
Balm of Gilead,
Balm of Gilead,
Down't peach blow farm.
1.
Massa loved his good old jamaica, his good old jamaica, his good old jamaica,
Massa loved his good old jamaica,
Down in Al-a-ba-ma.Chorus:
Hip! Hip! hurrah!
Ah, ah, Hip! hip! hurrah!
Oh, my lamb.
Oh, we aint, going home anymore,
Oh, we ain't going home any more,
Oh, we ain't going home any more ......
Down't the peach blow farm.Balm of Gilead,
Balm of Gilead,
Balm of Gilead,
Down't the peach blow farm.2.
Ain't I glad to get out the wilderness, get out the wilderness, get out the wilderness,
Ain't I glad to get out the wilderness,
Oh, my lamb.[REPEAT CHORUS]
3.
My old horse he came from Jerusalem, he came from Jerusalem, he came from Jerusalem,
He kick so high they put him in the mus'eum,
Down in Al-a-ba-ma.[REPEAT CHORUS]
Copyright 1861, by Oliver Ditson & Co.
Printed with musical score, pp. 109-111, "Minstrel Songs Old and New," Copyright 1882, Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston.
*In the Civil War armies, "Balm of Gilead" meant any hard liquor.
Pretty wild, right? For the most part, the song doesn’t align with “Down on Penny’s Farm” at all. BUT, that tune to which the “Down’t the Peach Blow farm” refrain is sung bears a strong resemblance to the refrain of “Down on Penny’s Farm”. Could the author of “Down on Penny’s Farm” have drawn from the well of “Hard Times” and the songs that took place ‘down on someone’s farm’? It seems so.
Bingo Farm
Peach Blow Farm is the the oldest ‘down on someone’s farm’ song that I’ve found. It was first documented in 1861 (the same year as “The Soldier’s Complaint”). The second farm in this series is the Bingo Farm, which first showed up in the 1905 edition of The University of Chicago Song Book.
There’s no clue as to what “bingo farm” might have meant on the University of Chicago (U. of C.) campus in 1905, but here’s the text. I’m assuming this used a tune similar to that of “Balm of Gilead”, since it borrows the lines, but I cannot confirm this.
BINGO
Here's to U. of C., drink it down, drink it down;
Here's to U. of C., drink it down, drink it down;
Here's to U. of C., here is to our Varsity,
Drink it down, drink it down, down, down.
Balm of Gilead, Gilead, Balm of Gilead, Gilead,
Balm of Gilead, way down on the Bingo farm.
We won't go there any more,
We won’t go there any more,
We won’t go there any more,
Way down on the Bingo farm.
Bingo, Bingo, Bingo, Bingo, Bingo, Bingo,
Way down on the Bingo farm.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100610152954/http://home.uchicago.edu/~ahkissel/cgosongs.html
SIDEBAR: B-I-N-G-O Bingo was his name. Oh?
It would appear that the University of Chicago text, or some variant thereof, spawned a children’s song “Down on the Bingo Farm”. This song took on a life of its own, eventually making its way into the summer camp songbooks of the 20th century.
We have two different texts of the summer camp song below. Both were drawn from personal recollections, and neither of them include music. I’m not suggesting that this song contributed in any way to “Down on Penny’s Farm”. I include it here because I find the connection to be fascinating sidebar.
Based on the chorus for the first version of Bingo Farm below, it’s no stretch to think another children’s song (about a dog named Bingo whose name is spelled out in the chorus) emerged from this song later on.
So yeah, this would mean that “B-I-N-G-O” and “Maggie’s Farm” are distant, but not too distant, musical cousins.
(NOTE: The quotes below are truncated. Full texts can be found at the linked pages)
CHO:
B-I-N-G-O go Bingo, B-I-N-G-O go Bingo
B-I-N-G-O go Bingo Down on the Bingo Farm.I had a girl named Sally,
when I lived in the alley,
& she lived in the valley,
way down on the Bingo Farm.
Oh, the farmer's name was Hiram
In the morning he would hire 'em
In the evening he would fire 'em
Down on the Bingo farmCHORUS:
On the B-I-B-I-B-I-Bingo
B-I-B-I-B-I-Bingo
B-I-B-I-B-I-Bingo
Down on the Bingo farm
Pichelo Farm
Song collector Vance Randolph published multiple volumes of Ozark folk songs, and Ozark Folksongs: Volume III, Humorous and Play-Party Songs included a fragment of “Down on the Pichelo Farm” that was popular on the play-party scene around 1910.
(NOTE: In a nutshell, play-parties were the old time frontier equivalent of modern play dates for children. Granted, it’s a little more complicated than that, and the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture offers a much more detailed explanation. Play-party songs are children’s songs that would be sung at such gatherings, and the songs would often (but not always) contain participatory elements such as those in “Skip To My Lou” or “London Bridge”.)
I don’t have access to a copy of Vance’s book, but a kind soul posted the text from Vance’s book to a thread on Mudcat.org. The textual structure of this fragment doesn’t align at all with “Down on Penny’s Farm’, but it is another example of events down on a named person’s farm, and contains a refrain that may have been sung to the same tune as the final four words of the Bentley Boys’ refrain in “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
DOWN ON THE PICHELO FARM
Fragment remembered by Mr. Clyde Sharp, Pack, MO, 1928, as part of a play-party song popular ... in 1910.
I got a gal named Dinah,
The people cain't outshine her,
An' I'll take a kiss if I find her
Down on the Pichelo farm.
Her father's name was Moses
Her shoes was out the toeses
...............
Down on the Pichelo farm.
An' a rig jag jig jag jig jag (3x)
Down on the Pichelo farm.
Vance Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, vol. 3, no. 572.
SOURCE: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=41872
Another Side of Pichelo Farm
CONTENT WARNING. Things are about to get spicy. This section contains language and discusses content that don’t typically appear on Anthology Revisited. Consider yourself warned.
In addition to the previous text of “Pichelo Farm”, Vance Randolph collected additional verses to the song. These verses were published in the 1992 text Roll Me In Your Arms - Unprintable: Ozark folksongs and folklore - Volume One Folksongs and Music. (Internet Archive)
As the book’s title suggests, along with texts that appear in standard folk song collections, more colorful versions of songs were floating about. In most songs about adult topics, explicit sexual references were hidden in plain sight via code words and slang. But in other songs, instead of employing code words, the innocuous lyrics would be swapped out for spicier words when performed for an adult audience.
Reread this quatrain from the fragments of “Pichelo Farm”.
I got a gal named Dinah,
The people cain't outshine her,
An' I'll take a kiss if I find her
Down on the Pichelo farm.
Now, check out this variant of the same song, with the not-suitable-for-children lyrics, and read what Randolph had to say about them.
I got a gal named Dinah,
The people can't outshine her,
I'll fuck her if I find her,
Down on the Pichelo farm.I'll whistle up my dinner
As sure as I'm a sinner,
An' then I'll stick it in her,
Down on the Pichelo farm.A. Sung by Mr. C. S., Pack, Missouri, August 14, 1928. Randolph notes: "At the better class play-parties the third line is sung, 'An I'll take a kiss if I find her.' But on less decorous occasions the stanza goes," alliteratively, as above. "Kissing" clean-ups of erotic folksongs are of course standard fare-and so also in literature, drama, motion pictures, dance, ballet, etc.
…
It has not been possible to determine whether the present song is the original, or more likely a parody of the pop song dating from the 1910s or 20s, "Dinah," with the same rhyme on "outshine 'er," in addition to the unforgiveable final pun on "dynamite/Dinah might."
SOURCE: https://archive.org/details/unprintableozark0000rand/page/409/mode/1up
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Both versions of Pichelo Farm were probably obtained from the same person. Clyde Sharp of Pack, MO contributed the first version in 1928, and the more colorful version was collected from Mr. C.S. of Pack, MO in 1928.)
Pichelo Farm By Another Name (e.g., Bigelow or Biggerlow)
Vance went on to provide additional lyrics that were circulating around Springfield Missouri in 1915, where the farm was the Bigelow (or Biggerlow) instead of Pichelo farm. Though not as visceral as the initial punch landed by the uncensored “Dinah” stanza, this is still some spicy text.
Had a gal named Susie,
(Surely was a doosie,)
Sassy little floozie
Down on the Bigerlow farm.My Susie went to Dover,
A-kicking Charley over,
So now she is a rover
Down on the Bigerlow farm.She says that we must marry,
And riper grows the cherry,
I got no time to tarry
Down on the Bigerlow farm.B. Sung by Miss R. S., Springfield, Missouri, April 17, 1934. She stated that she learned it from her neighbors in Springfield, about 1915.
In this context, both “floozie” and “rover” both mean prostitute, and if you reread the text above with that in mind, you might think they’re referring to a farm of ill repute. And you would be correct.
According to Vance, the Picelo/Bigelow farm was a real place in southwest Missouri, (in the vicinity of Springfield, the rural community of Pack, or somewhere in between), “where Ozark girls who failed to find husbands would end up as prostitutes”.
Down on the Bigelow Farm performed by J.W. Becker - The only recording I could locate was a field recording made by Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin on August 15, 1940 at the Shafter, California FSA camp for dust bowl refugees. Obviously this was recorded after “Down on Penny’s Farm”. What’s evident is that while the overall verse structure doesn’t match “Down on Penny’s Farm”, the melody of the refrain “down on the Bigelow Farm” echoes the way the Bentley Boy sang “down on Penny’s Farm”. So it seems likely that the author of “Down on Penny’s Farm” could have borrowed a little bit from “Hard Times” and a little bit from someone’s farm.
The Verdict
Harry Smith told us that “Down on Penny’s Farm” came from some version of “Hard Times”, and I’m comfortable in my belief that Beadle with the repeated refrain (or some variation thereof) is the source for the tune.
I’ll concede the possibility that the tune for “Down on Penny’s Farm” borrowed from two sources, with the Lomax II, Hudson, Cox, or Beadle variants providing the music for the verses, and a ‘down on someone’s farm’ song providing the tune for the refrain. But this seems unlikely.
Instead, I believe the tune from Beadle is the complete musical source here, and the “down on Penny’s farm” line is itself a lyrical borrowing.
What about “Hard Times of Old England”? This one is a little trickier to answer, but based on the lyrics from Beadle, if legitimate connections exist between “Hard Times of Old England” and “Hard Times”, these connections are just structural and conceptual with “Hard Times” borrowing some features and feel from the English text.
The Performance
So we’ve dug into the muddy history of this song, and have emerged with some solid theories, even if we don’t have definitive answers.
Now, let’s turn our focus to the song performed by The Bentley Boys in their lone recording session. The performance itself is fine. It features a vocalist, guitar and banjo, but there’s no breakthrough stuff here on the musical side of things.
The song is a little bit funny and a whole lot sad. This is common in songs about rural misery. Though the situation may be dire, folks manage to retain a sense of humor. Since there’s nothing major to report about the performance, I want to really dig in to these lyrics and break it all down because the content here is pretty serious.
Hard Times in the Country - A sharecropper’s life
To really understand what’s being said in this song, we need to discuss the situation itself. Sharecropping is a practice that emerged in the US prior to the Civil War, but which became more widespread after the abolition of slavery. Since plantation owners could no longer own their workforce, other arrangements had to be made. Plantations were divided into plots, and former slaves (as well as indigent whites) became tenants on the land. Prior to planting season, the landowner would determine what crop(s) were to be grown and the yield the tenants were expected to produce. At harvest, the tenant would receive their percentage of the yield (provided they met the quotas), and settle up with the landowner. As you’ll soon see, this was always a lopsided arrangement. Landowners had the upper hand in all dealings with tenants, and regularly exploited this advantage.
So let’s dig in and look at what this song is really saying. There is a lot going on, and the song gives a solid accounting of the sharecropper’s plight. I’m gonna break down the lyrics and unpack the whole story. You should know that this transcription is my own, and not the Lomax IV version.
You move out on Penny's farm,
Plant a little crop of 'baccer and a little crop of corn;
Come around to see you gonna flit and flot,
'Til you get yourself a mortgage on everything you got.
It's a-hard times in the country,
Out on Penny's farm.
The first verse is self-explanatory, so we’re starting with the second verse. The first two lines are clear, our tenant has moved to Penny’s farm and is growing tobacco and corn. In the third line, we have a landowner who will:
“come around to see you, gonna flit and plot”.
My ear actually hears “flit and flot” and I have seen it transcribed as “plip and plop”, “plit and plot”, “plan and plot“, and “flip and flop”, but “flit and plot” is what I think it’s trying to say, primarily because that’s the only combination of such words that would make sense in the context.
How does it make sense? When Penny visits the tenant, he flits about, examining the situation, then plots as to how to twist the situation and tip the scales further in his own favor by forcing the sharecroppers into chattel mortgages, as referenced in the fourth line “Til you get yourself a mortgage on everything you got”.
Here’s how the chattel mortgage worked. Most sharecroppers didn’t own farming equipment and would buy it from the landowner or a local merchant on credit. The sharecroppers had little, if any, money, and each time a new need arose, a new chattel mortgage would be initiated. Credit provided by landowners or local stores was weighted in the lender’s favor and could carry high interest for the sharecroppers.
Here’s the screwed up part. If the sharecropper couldn’t afford to pay for the equipment at the end of the season, it would be repossessed by the landowner or merchant, leaving the sharecropper with a debt and no equipment. The debt would worsen with each passing year, as sharecroppers had to take out new chattel mortgages and dig the hole deeper.
Hasn't George Penny got a flattering mouth?
Move you to the country in a little log house;
Got no windows but the cracks in the wall;
He'll work you all the summer and rob you in the fall.
It's a-hard times in the country,
Out on Penny's farm.
In verse 3, we have the living quarters Penny provided for his tenants. I see echoes here of the conditions John Johanna faced in Song 14 of the Anthology, after he was promised one thing but received another.
You go in the fields, you'll work all day,
Way into night but you get no pay;
(You're) promised some meat or a little bucket (of) lard;
It's hard to be a renter on Penny's farm.
It's a-hard times in the country,
Out on Penny's farm.
Verse 4 is a blunt description of the facts. Go in the fields, work all day, way into the night but you get no pay. If you’ve spent much time in the south in the summer, you know that the sun stays well into the evening. In North Carolina, where this song is based, it stays light out until around 8 or 9 PM in the summer, and the farther south one travels, the longer the sun stays out. And yet, these sharecroppers are working even into the night on the promise of some meat or lard (rendered hog fat) for sustenance. I already mentioned parallels to “My Name is John Johanna”, and here they are again. We’ve got poor people in poorer conditions, whose very survival hinges on the hope that a promise might be kept.
Here's George Penny, he'll come into town
With a wagon load of peaches, not a one of them sound;
He's got to have his money or somebody's check;
Pay him for a bushel and you don't get a peck.
It's a-hard times in the country,
Out on Penny's farm.
Verse 5 shows George Penny to be a real schmuck. This verse is a little weird, and took some thought to unwrap. George Penny is the landowner, and decides what to plant and when to plant it. When the growing season ends, he (or his designated proxy) decides when the harvest should begin, and in what order the harvest should be done, and then oversees the selling of the fruit.
The sharecroppers themselves have no say in the quality of the fruit produced, they simply pull peaches from the trees when they’re told to do so. All quality control decisions are made by Penny.
When harvest time comes around, it turns out that George Penny has made some poor choices or encountered bad luck in the growing season, and he heads into town to sell his all-but-inedible peaches. The lines “He’s got to have his money or somebody’s check / Pay him for a bushel and you don’t get a peck” means George Penny doesn’t about the quality of the peaches, he just wants to get paid in full just the same.
In this particular case, less than 1/4th of the peaches were edible. (A bushel is a measurement of volume equal to 32 quarts. A peck is one fourth of a bushel (or 8 quarts). So, out of 32 quarts of peaches in the basket, fewer than 8 quarts were actually edible.)
Here’s the problem for the tenants. Sharecroppers were paid in crops. If the peaches didn’t sell in town, then sharecroppers got less money than expected for their share of the peaches, and they were stuck with a bunch of worthless peaches.
George Penny's renters they'll come into town
With their hands in their pockets and their head hanging down.
Go in the store and the merchant will say,
"Your mortgage is due and I'm looking for my pay."
It's a-hard times in the country,
Out on Penny's farm.Down in his pocket with a trembling hand,
"Can't pay you all, but I'll pay you what I can."
Then to the telephone, the merchant makes a call,
He'll put you on the chain gang, (if) you don't pay it all.
It's a-hard times in the country,
Out on Penny's farm.
The final two verses bring us to the end of the harvest season. We don’t know what happened with the other crops, but the peach debacle already has our sharecroppers in a bad spot. Here, our sharecropper goes into town and, since it’s post-harvest, the merchant is expecting payment for the items the renter purchased on credit throughout the season. The sharecropper doesn’t have all the money, but he’s willing to pay what he can. The price for not paying? Incarceration.
(NOTE: Debtor’s prisons were abolished in the US in 1833, but even today, debt-collection agencies use courts to have debtors incarcerated for being poor unable to pay debts. (In a nutshell, the agencies file civil charges against the debtors, and when the debtor can’t pay the judgement, they are incarcerated. I’m not a legal scholar, and the process is a bit more nuanced than that, but “A Pound of Flesh” , a 2018 report from the ACLU explains how it all goes down if you wish to educate yourself on the issue.) If such shenanigans can happen in 2025, is it that hard to believe a landowner or merchant in 1925 could call in a favor from the sheriff that would have the sharecropper jailed with no recourse for little or no legal cause?)
A North Carolina landowner named George Penny
This may or may not be of any value, but there was a man named George T. Penny who started his career with his brother Jim as “The World’s Original Twin Auctioneers” and later became a real estate broker. In 1926, Penny had the estate house of Pennybryn constructed near Jamestown, NC. He and his wife lived there for only five years before moving back to Greensboro. George T. Penny obviously owned land, and while he was involved in several different business ventures, I found no reference to any farming operations, but it’s not out of the question.
The lone significant article I found on George T. Penny (originally published in the Jamestown (NC) News in 2018) focuses mostly on the Pennybryn property, but includes the following paragraphs on Penny’s reputation in business.
He was obviously a wheeler-dealer and apparently made and lost several fortunes over his lifetime.
J.J. Farriss wrote in 1906, "His word was as good as his bond anywhere he is known and his counsel and aid is sought in many lines of business."
However, he "liked nothing better than skinning the wealthy," wrote former Enterprise editor Holt McPherson in 1961. "He became a legend in his own time. Penny fastened himself upon this community around the turn of the century to make himself always an interesting, and at times a sinister, face in its development."
The book High Pointers of High Point notes this about Penny's character: "A shred [sic] and glib trader, Penny felt it his bounden duty to persuade some of the successful manufacturers to diversify their interests ? and he unloaded upon them some of the most questionable properties here and elsewhere ? especially around Washington, D.C. ? to his own enrichment, while they wrung their hands for letting themselves be taken in by his swindles."
It appears that George T. Penny got a kick out of selling useless property to rich folks. I can’t help but wonder if he had farming enterprises, and got a kick out of screwing over sharecroppers too. I found nothing to suggest Penny had any farms, but I haven’t taken this exploration so far as to investigate property records (yet).
Is George T. Penny the same George Penny in the song? We don’t know.
Based solely on what we know, it is plausible that they could be one and the same. We know Penny made real estate deals. As such, it’s entirely possible that one of those deals involved the purchase of farmland which Penny then parceled out to sharecroppers. I want to think this isn’t the case, but there’s a sentence from the article above that keeps haunting me.
Penny fastened himself upon this community around the turn of the century to make himself always an interesting, and at times a sinister, face in its development.
To me, this sentence says that George Penny was so well-known in the area, and had achieved such a level of infamy in some circles that he didn't need to own farmland that was parceled out to sharecroppers for this song to have been written about him.
If this is the same George Penny, and he was as notorious as one might think, then anyone with a grudge against Penny and familiarity with the plight of sharecroppers could have written (or adapted) the song whether or not he even owned farmland.
We could do maybe games forever, but in the end, it doesn’t matter whether or not these George Pennys are one and the same. The song offers a frighteningly accurate accounting of the sharecropper’s experience regardless of the landowner’s name. But I will do more research and update this article if anything of substance emerges.
The Performers
Throughout this series, I’ve been able to pull in new information on some of the artists, but unfortunately, I was unable to locate any definitive information about the Bentley Boys. We know they were from North Carolina, and that on October 23, 1929, they recorded two songs for Victor Records in Johnson City, TN.
The trio consisted of a guitarist, banjoist, and fiddler. Unless the group had a singing fiddler who sang “Down on Penny’s Farm” while the guitarist and banjoist provided the music, only two members of the group (guitar and banjo players) appear on “Down on Penny’s Farm”. All three Bentley Boys appear on the other recording, “Henhouse Blues”.
CAVEAT: “Henhouse Blues” has roots in Paul Cox’s blackface number “I Don’t Care If I Never Wake Up”, a song that is loaded with racist sentiments. I tell you this because I believe you should be warned beforehand, and then choose for yourself whether or not to give the track a spin. Racism is vile, but refusing to link to the recording would be irresponsible on my part and go against everything I believe in. My self-assigned duty here is to tell the story. Regrettably, racism is a part of that story and must be included here because such attitudes were the default setting in that time and place.
In 1962, Mike Seeger interviewed Frank Walker and brought up the Bentley Boys to see if Walker could shed any light on their identities. When asked what he remembered about their 1929 Johnson City session, Walker replied “Not very much. No great shakes”, and when asked if he knew where they came from, Walker didn’t recall.
Tony Russell’s Rural Rhythm: The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records includes a segment on “Down on Penny’s Farm”, and a similar write-up by Russell appears in the Bear Family box set The Johnson City Sessions - “Can You Sing or Play Old-Time Music?”. Russell’s information is more robust than anything I’ve found elsewhere, and it is from both these sources that the following was drawn.
Tony Russell tracked down the Bentley Boys to the Greensboro, NC area, and found a few references in local newspapers. The July 29, 1930 edition of the Burlington Daily Times had the Bentley Boys headlining an old-time fiddler’s convention at the E.M. Holt School in Alamance County, NC. Other newspapers advertised the group playing at two fiddler’s conventions in Liberty (Randolph County), NC on November 22, 1930 and February 21, 1931.
Russell did the research and found the only Bentley living in Greensboro who seemed a match was Clement Lester Bentley, who was born in Georgia in 1904 and moved to Greensboro in 1926. Clement Bentley worked in an overall factory, and married Ethel Lockamy in December 1928. He died in 1977 and his wife died in 1999.
Clement’s nephew, Tom Lockamy lived with the Bentleys in his youth and recalls his uncle singing and playing guitar and even mentioning that he had performed on radio. Lockamy, did not, however, recognize Clement’s voice on the recording of “Down on Penny’s Farm”, nor was he familiar with the song. (Although, Lockamy wasn’t born until the 1940’s, and the recording was made in 1929, and perhaps Bentley never sang the tune for Lockamy). Kathleen Wheeler, Ethel’s sister, was in her 90’s when she was interviewed, and like Tom Lockamy, she didn’t recognize Clement’s voice on the recording either. However, according to Russell, she “did recall some of the lyrics and associate the song with him”. It’s entirely possible that Clement Bentley was simply the guitarist and not the vocalist in these recordings, and the singing duties fell to the banjoist or fiddler (who didn’t play on “Down on Penny’s Farm”).
These recollections don’t provide the airtight solution one would prefer, but they suggest that we’re in the ballpark. For this, I’m tremendously grateful for Tony Russell’s diligence on this matter, and see no reason to disagree with his conclusion that Clement Bently was probably one of the performers who appear on “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
Clement Bentley was buried in Guilford Memorial Park in Greensboro, NC.
I realize that’s not a whole lot of information, but it’s everything we’ve got. If Clement Bentley was indeed the guitar player for the Bentley Boys, we can only guess as to who the other two members might have been, as that information appears to be lost to the ages.
Connections
Though we don’t know their identities, but the Bentley Boys were from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area. This means means we’ve got yet another performance by a NC/VA Piedmont string band on our hands, joining the ranks of Kelley Harrell and the Virginia String Band, the Carolina Tar Heels, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, Burnett and Rutherford, and Eck Dunford (who had help from the Stoneman Family on his recording of “Old Shoes and Leggins”).
As mentioned previously, there are several echoes of “My Name is John Johanna” here. In that song, the titular character was exploited by Alan Catcher, and here, our nameless sharecroppers are subjected to similar mistreatment by George Penny. As with John Johanna, this song is also based on true circumstances, but not on a specific, identifiable individual. Finally, “Down on Penny’s Farm” is the first song since “My Name is John Johanna” to make any attempt at humor.
Of course, this is another “life on the job” song, and another “hard times” song, traits it shares with the other five songs on Side D of Volume One - Ballads.
Other Interpretations
I’m gonna go ahead and warn you that every song titled “Down on Penny’s Farm” adheres tightly to the original. If you’re looking for a wild, surprising interpretation of this song, you might have to create it for yourself.
Gid Tanner - Tanner’s Farm - The only other old time recording of “Down on Penny’s Farm” was “Tanner’s Farm”, recorded in San Antonio, TX on March 29, 1924. This is “Down on Penny’s Farm” with a different name and slightly tweaked lyrics performed by Riley Puckett on guitar and Gid Tanner on fiddle. Gid Tanner and Clement Bentley were both from the same area in Georgia, and may have known one another, but as with most things related to Clement Bentley, we don’t know anything for sure.
Pete Seeger - Down on Penny’s Farm - Pete Seeger could always be counted on to deliver a clearly articulated performance. Many performers (myself included) can sing in a way that renders the lyrics difficult to decipher, but this was never the case with Pete Seeger. If you ever want to clearly hear the words of a folk song, find a Pete Seeger recording of the song. Even with my poor hearing, I can still clearly understand every word Pete says.
Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur - Down on Penny’s Farm - Jim Kweskin is an interesting character who’s been making music since the 60’s. Back in the 60’s, he led the Jim Kweskin Jug Band which included Maria and Geoff Muldaur, among others. The band put out 6 albums on Vanguard records, which you should check out. Kweskin and Muldaur reunited in 2016 to release the album “Penny’s Farm” from which this recording was drawn. The album also included several other songs that appeared on the Anthology, and included additional performers, including Suzy Thompson, Cindy Cashdollar, Randy Landas, Kevin Smith, Don Heffington, Van Dyke Parks, Juli Crockett and Paul Pouwer
Happy and Artie Traum - Penny’s Farm - This “Other Interpretations” section is starting to resemble a little “who’s who” of the folk revival. Happy and Artie Traum were already fixtures of the Greenwich Village folk scene when Bob Dylan arrived in town. The Traum brothers were key players in the folk movement, and they’ve both made (and appeared on) some superb records over the years, including Hard Times in the Country, the album on which the recording below appeared.
Holy Modal Rounders - Down on Penny’s Farm - Another wild group to emerge from the folk revival in the 60’s is the Holy Modal Rounders. Their music has been described as psychedelic folk, and I cannot disagree. They did some unique stuff over the years, and if you’re into the wild side of folk music, you might wanna dig into their catalog a bit. This recording is of a more recent vintage, appearing on their 1999 album Too Much Fun.
Natalie Merchant - Down on Penny’s Farm - Here we have another more contemporary recording of the song, and the only version here to feature female lead vocals. Natalie Merchant came into prominence with 10,000 Maniacs in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and went on to record several solo albums after the band split up. This is taken from her 2003 album of traditional and contemporary folk songs, “The House Carpenter’s Daughter”.
Bob Dylan on Penny’s Farm
Bob Dylan has shown up in the “Other Interpretations” section of this series several times, and this time it’s a little different. To my knowledge, Bob Dylan has never been recorded performing “Down on Penny’s Farm”, but that doesn’t mean “Down on Penny’s Farm” didn’t have an impact on Dylan. He may never have performed this particular song, but he wrote a couple of songs that are rooted squarely in “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
Bob Dylan - Hard Times in New York - Way back in 1961, a young Bob Dylan arrived in New York City in the hopes of becoming a professional musician. His first album consisted of all covers with the exceptions of “Talkin’ New York” and “Song to Woody”. An early composition that didn’t make it on the album was called “Hard Times in New York Town”, a song that borrows all of the music and some of the words from “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
Bob Dylan - Maggie’s Farm - (Newport Folk Festival 1965) In the four years after writing “Hard Times in New York”, Bob Dylan’s life changed dramatically. He’d released a few albums of original material, and those albums contained a handful of songs that changed popular music forever. Songs like “Blowin in the Wind”, “Masters of War”, and “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, and “Chimes of Freedom” rattled the folk establishment, and firmly situated Dylan at the top of the folk music world. He was being hailed as the voice of a generation, and the world seemed to be waiting with bated breath for his next utterance. On July 25, 1965, Dylan was headlining the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. Up until that evening, Bob Dylan almost always performed as a solo artist, with only occasional guest vocalists or musicians. But when Dylan took the stage that evening, the audience was shocked to see Bob Dylan on stage backed by a full band featuring Al Kooper (organ), and three members of the Butterfield Blues Band; Mike Bloomfield (lead guitar), Jerome Arnold (bass), and Sam Lay (drums). As the quintet launched into the first live performance of “Maggie’s Farm” (the second Dylan song with roots in “Down on Penny’s Farm”), Bob Dylan went electric, and the world changed for good.
Conclusion
Most of the time, these explorations touch on to topics other than songs, but this time, apart from examining the plight of sharecroppers, the bulk of our focus was been on the relationships between songs, as I’ve attempted to unravel exactly how “Down on Penny’s Farm” came into being. We touched on a few other things, but spent most of our time looking for the roots of this song and digging deep into the text of “Down on Penny’s Farm”.
What have we learned? We’ve learned that we will never know everything there is to know about this song or its performers, the Bentley Boys. We’ve learned that “Down on Penny’s Farm” has roots and tentacles that stretch in many directions. Prior to writing this, I knew about the “Maggie’s Farm” connection, but was clueless about the numerous “Hard Times” songs. Meanwhile, we learned that “B-I-N-G-O” and “Maggie’s Farm” are cousins. We’ve also learned that “B-I-N-G-O’ is akin to a play-party song that dropped the first F-bomb to appear in Anthology Revisited. We also learned that I may have spoken too soon when I said this song is based on actual events. We don’t know everything there is to know about George T. Penny of North Carolina, but it’s possible that he was the George Penny of the song. Just how much of the song is actually true, in regards to Penny, remains to be seen.
The events described in the song are very real, and while this song is not based on specific events, it explicitly describes the very real experiences of many very real American sharecroppers in the early 20th century. Unsolicited personal anecdote, you’ll notice that I cite no sources which refer to sharecropping. This is because I am the grandson of North Carolina sharecroppers. While my grandmother was pregnant with my father, their shack burned down. My grandparents and their children, of which my father was the fourth, were living in a barn when my father was born. So while I never experienced sharecropper living for myself, my (very reliable) sources gave me all the information I needed to write about sharecropping.
I must confess to feeling as if I’ve opened a Pandora’s Box with the “Hard Times” thing and, to a lesser degree, the George Penny thing. While some questions linger, I am satisfied with my conclusion that what I referred to as the Lost “Hard Times” was, in fact Beadle with the refrain repeated. I’ll keep my eyes open for other options and update this article if any new information is located about “Hard Times”, George Penny, or the Bentley Boys, but as I write these closing words (a mere 10 hours before publication), I’m satisfied with what I’ve presented here. I hope you are as well.
In the next installment, we’ve got The Masked Marvel performing “Mississippi Boweavil Blues”, and I promise, you won’t want to miss it. This is our only chance to talk about the Masked Marvel, and I wanna do it up right. Who is the Masked Marvel? Come back next week to find out!
Finally, as I’ve already mentioned in this article, and as I say at the end of each article, even though my fingers typed every word word of this article that isn’t a URL or a quoted block of text, Anthology Revisited builds upon the work other researchers. So, anything you’ve read that isn’t obviously the opinion or experience of this author was drawn from some other source, and is the fruit of another researcher’s labor. If you’d like to learn anything more about the songs and texts discussed in this installment of Anthology Revisited, the sources I used when composing this piece are just beneath the support message and the brief Bentley Boys discography.
How to support Anthology Revisited
Anthology Revisited is a labor of love, and with the exception of block quotes and URL’s, every word in this article came from my fingertips. No AI was used in creating this (or any other) Anthology Revisited article. With this series, my primary goal is to create a work of substance that adds value to the ongoing conversation about Harry Smith’s Anthology and its impact. My secondary goal is to use this series to establish myself as a serious music writer. Your likes, restacks, and comments are tremendously helpful to me, and are most appreciated. If you would like to support my work (or contact me beyond the comments section), here are some actions you can take:
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Bentley Boys Discography
October 23, 1929 - Victor Records - Johnson City, Tennessee
PERSONNEL: banjo, guitar, fiddle, vocals
Down on Penny’s Farm (W149254) (banjo, guitar, vocals) (DAHR)
Henhouse Blues (W149255) (banjo, fiddle, vocals) (DAHR)
Sources
Our Singing Country - Folk Songs and Ballads
Lomax, John A. and Lomax, Alan
”Hard Times in the Country”
pp.287-288
Macmillan, 1941
New York City, NY
Stephen Foster | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Foster
Hard Times Come Again No More | Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Times_Come_Again_No_More
Old Songs: PENNY'S FARM | Lyle Lofgren
https://www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/RmOlSngs/RTOS-PennysFarm.html
DOWN ON THE PICHELO FARM
Provided in discussion thread Lyr Req: Down on Penney’s Farm / Penny’s Farm on mudcat.org by user Q (Frank Staplin) on 19 Jan 09 - 10:38 PM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=41872
Roll Me In Your Arms
Unprintable: Ozark folksongs and folklore
Volume One
Folksongs and Music
Randolph, Vance (1892-1980)
University of Arkansas Press, 1992
Fayetteville, AR
https://archive.org/details/unprintableozark0000rand/page/409/mode/1up
American Ballads and Folk Songs
Lomax, John A. and Lomax, Alan
”Hard Times”
pp.332-334
Macmillan, 1966
New York City, NY
https://archive.org/details/americanballadsf00lomax/page/334/mode/1up
Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan
Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner and Geraldine Jencks Chickering
”Hard Times”
pp.443-445
University of Michigan Press, 1936
Ann Arbor, MI
https://archive.org/details/balladssongsofso0000emel_a5r3
Folk Songs of the South
John Harrington Cox
”Hard Times”
pp. 511-513
Harvard University Press, 1925
Cambridge, MA
https://archive.org/details/folksongsofsouth00coxj/page/511/mode/1up
Folk Songs of Mississippi
Arthur Palmer Hudson
”Hard Times”
pp.215-216
University of North Carolina Press, 1936
Chapel Hill, NC
Diary of Ephraim Shay 1861-1862
https://web.archive.org/web/20060717025836/http://www.ephraimshay.com/diary186162.html
Hard Times of Old England | Folk From the Attic - Jon Wilks
https://jonwilks.online/hard-times-of-old-england-folk-from-the-attic
Hard Times of Old England (Roud 1206) | MainlyNorfolk
https://mainlynorfolk.info/copperfamily/songs/hardtimesofoldengland.html
Lyr. Add. Balm of Gilead | Mudcat.org
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104184
BINGO | Chicago Songs
Originally published in The University of Chicago Song Book (1905). https://web.archive.org/web/20100610152954/http://home.uchicago.edu/~ahkissel/cgosongs.html
Play-Parties | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=PL001
Barry S. Goldberg’s Silly Song Project - Down on the Bingo Farm
https://barrygoldberg.net/sillysongs/bingo.htm
Columbia Matrix 47063. Balm of Gilead / Harry C. Browne | Discography of American Historical Recordings
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/2000024346/47063-Balm_of_Gilead
A Pound of Flesh: The Criminalization of Private Debt | American Civil Liberties Union
https://www.aclu.org/publications/pound-flesh-criminalization-private-debt
George Penny (1877-1961) | FamilySearch
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/about/GSS4-FJ9
Penny's dealings paved the way for nursing home
https://aging.networkofcare.org/denverregion-co/CommunityResources/News/Article?articleId=72404
Pennybyrn (George T. Penny House) | NC Architects and Builders, A Biographical Dictionary
https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/buildings/B003811
Clement Lester Bentley (1904-1977) | FindAGrave
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103489120/clement-lester-bentley
Clement Lester Bentley (1904-1977) | FamilySearch
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/about/KCWD-QLL
Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan and Penny's Farm) - Old Friends: A Songobiography
Elijah Wald
https://www.elijahwald.com/songblog/maggies-farm/