Traditional

Author unknown; Roud Folk Song Index 6393

There is no author to name. The song is traditional, of uncertain authorship, and carries the number 6393 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Its lineage is usually traced to the British broadside ballad tradition, with one theory holding that it travelled from England to the American South; another reads the “rising sun” as a sunburst insignia dating to the reign of Louis XIV. Ashley’s own account — that he had it from his grandfather — puts the song comfortably back into the nineteenth century.

Who recorded it

Songs written by Traditional

Baby, Please Don't Go

Written by them — first recorded by Big Joe Williams

The House of the Rising Sun

Written by them — first recorded by Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster

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