“Down Among the Budded Roses,” usually titled “Budded Rose” or “Budded Roses” on early records, reached disc through Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, who recorded it for Columbia in New York on 18 September 1926 (Columbia 15138-D, coupled with “Good-Bye Booze”). Poole’s biographer Kinney Rorrer has said the record sold more than 35,000 copies, well above the 20,000 that made a hit for Columbia at the time. The Red Fox Chasers recorded the song in 1929, in a style that stayed close to the Ramblers’ and copied Poole’s banjo style and guitar runs.
The lyric is a parting song. A man says goodbye to his sweetheart, reminds her of the promise she made him in the lane, and says that among the budded roses he is nothing but a stem. He wonders whether the parting is forever and ends by asking her to meet him in heaven.
The Shelton Brothers recorded it for Decca in New York on 19 December 1935, and Decca issued it as “Budded Roses” on 5180 in February 1936; Daddy John Love cut his version in Charlotte that same month. In March 1940 Decca released an answer to it, “Answer to Budded Roses,” by Whitey and Hogan, recorded in November 1939. Jim Eanes recorded it as “Budded Roses” at radio station WHEE in Martinsville, Virginia, in July 1959, and Starday issued it in September that year; the Vern Williams Band put it on Bluegrass from the Gold Country (Rounder, 1981), and Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick included it on Sing the Songs of Vern & Ray (2014).
