oldsaxon wrote: 
Thank you for the information on this song, oldsaxon!   I appreciate knowing a bit about the songs I enjoy, such as this one.

it's a riff off "Maddie Groves" it's OLD. these guys do an admirable job of making it contemporary.  First published in 1607.

Much prefer Doc's.

 Boy_Wonder wrote: 
I agree with Agreed. Awful song.

This song is ancient and varied. So many versions of it....thousands, I read somewhere. Very fun that so many versions of it exist.

Not as special as most Tom Petty songs and the Grisman / Garcia version is among my favorite pieces of music… I do like the piano and drums but they hammer it too hard.

 Well get lost then.
barbaraporto wrote: 

 barbaraporto wrote: 

NOT AGREED!!!

This song makes me want to have a go at my ears with knitting needles.

This is one of the reasons why I turn to PSD, or Pandora or somewhere......too much of this kind of music played on RP

 I feel better now about my two. 

Proclivities wrote: 

 Alexandra wrote: 


"Gilligan!! Haven't you finished building that bamboo-and-palm-leaf helicopter yet?!"
"But, Skipper, you've got to hear this!"
"What is it, little buddy?" 

Pretty traditional folk chord progression (traditional song), but I couldn't resist using that photo.

It's okay but I'm still stuck on the Quicksilver version. :)

 ceviche wrote: 
Hope Doc's version is better than Tom's...this verges on self-parody.

Is Shady Grove nicer than Rockville? Every time I go there (rarely now, thank God) there's a little less there there. 

 Alexandra wrote: 
Crap! Thanks a lot!  Stuck in head now and forever.  

Now play Matty Groves by Fairport, the long live version please, por favor

one of my favorte traditionals by one of my favorites, only love Neil, Bob, and the Dead more.

Was sitting there thinking 'Tom's obviously been digging out the old Fairport albums' and lo and behold, I was beaten to the idea that it's the bastard offspring of Matty Groves...

Still, it ain't bad at all!! 

So every time for the past 20 years that I have taken the Red Line on the Metro in Washington, DC, which stops in Shady Grove, MD, I think of the Doc Watson version of this song. It's kind of a pleasant little curse.

 sieversfam wrote: 
It was actually Tom Petty's band before "The Heartbreakers".

He decided to 'get the old band back together' for this album

Is this Mudcrotch band a side gig of Petty's?

Bill,  I thought  "Things that Scare me"  was "Shady Grove" when it first came on!   Now you should follow up with " I Scare Easy".  lol

2nd Mudcrutch song in two days. Like it. Ordered cd on Amazon. Looking forward to listening to it for a holiday road trip. Thanks Bill for the introduction.

 ncollingridge wrote: 
Despite the similarity in melody, they're not the same song—not even close lyric content. "Matty Groves" is the story of a servant, um, servicing his master's wife; they are caught in flagrante delicto, and the master kills them both. "Shady Grove" is a love song; the narrator simply pines for a young lady. "Shady Grove" has a reputed 300+ different verses written over time. Wiki places its origin in the 18th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shady_Grove_%28song%29). Wiki also places "Matty Groves" a century earlier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matty_Groves).

 All that said, IMHO it's entirely possible—indeed probable—that "Matty Groves" migrated to the colonies where it morphed into something entirely different.