“Sail Away Ladies” is an old-time breakdown that has been played as a fiddle tune and sung as a song built from floating verses. The Fiddler’s Companion cites Guthrie Meade in identifying it with south central Kentucky and middle Tennessee. Paul Wells of Middle Tennessee State University says the song was collected around the turn of the twentieth century and seems to have been common to both Black and white traditions, and A.B. Moore’s 1934 History of Alabama lists the title among the standard tunes of the square-dance fiddler. Charles Wolfe found the song in older collections, among them William W. Newell’s 1903 Games and Songs of American Children, and Thomas Talley printed a related text in Negro Folk Rhymes.
The first recording was instrumental. John L. “Uncle Bunt” Stephens, a Tennessee fiddler, cut it alone in New York on 29 March 1926 for Columbia (15071-D). That year he won the title of World Champion Fiddler at the finals of Henry Ford’s dealership fiddle contests, playing this tune and “Old Hen Cackled” against 1,876 other fiddlers; the prize was said to be $1,000, a new suit, a car and a new set of teeth. Henry L. Bandy, a southern Kentucky fiddler, recorded it for Gennett in 1928, but that side was never issued.
Uncle Dave Macon made the first recording with words, in New York on 7 May 1927, with his Fruitjar Drinkers: Sam McGee on guitar and Kirk McGee and Mazy Todd on fiddles (Vocalion 5155). His version includes a chorus that runs “Don’t she rock, Die-Dee-Oh?”; Tom Paley of the New Lost City Ramblers notes that other early recordings have “Don’t she rock, Darneo?” and “Don’t she rock ’em, Daddy-O?” Typical verses include “If ever I get my new house done, give my old one to my son” and “Children, don’t you grieve and cry, you’ll be angels, bye and bye.” The Highwoods String Band learned the tune from Macon’s record and included it on No. 3 Special (Rounder, 1976).
The English musician Dave Arthur reports that the song became popular in Britain during the skiffle craze of the 1950s, appearing on an EP, Lonnie Donegan Hit Parade vol. 2 (1957), as “Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O,” and that it later turned up on the set-list of the Liverpool group the Quarrymen. A different tune carries the same title in Mount Airy, North Carolina: Tommy Jarrell learned his “Sail Away Ladies,” mostly over an E minor chord, from the Round Peak fiddler Preston McKinney, and recorded it on County 756 in 1976.
