Bela Lam & Family - Poor Little Benny

Virginia native Zanddervon Beliah Lamb, renamed Bela Lam by Okeh Records, performs the song Poor Little Benny with wife Rose Meadows.

With Bela's brother-in-law Paul and son Alva, they became local favorites near the Blue Ridge Mountain region in the 1920's, eventually being called to New York City to record six songs.

Influenced by the local religious music of the day, Bela Lam & the Greene County Singers, as they would come to be known, are notable for their shape-note harmonies, highly influential during the period.

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Category:

Music

Tags:

• 1920's
• field
• recording
• Dear
• Father
• Come
• Home

[MaryRosewood]

Father, dear Father, come home with me now

The clock in the steeple strikes one

You said you were coming right home from the shop

As soon as your day's work was done

The fire is all out, the house is all dark

And Mother's been watching since tea

With poor little Benny so sick in her arms

And no one to help her but me

Come home, come home, come home

Please Father, dear Father, come home

[TomStrong08]

I would totally rock that moustache.

[omgaflyingmonkey]

Amazing music, with passion and some natural talent, i love me some american and bluegrass.

[rocket88ize]

This is from Virginia Roots Music. A colletion of recordings made in 1929 or about, to capture the sound of the time. This piece is my great-great-grandparents with my mom sitting on the chair. They were called the Greene County Singers.The Carter Family was there competion.

[darcyperkins]

my mother was born and raised in rural quebec, canada in the 1940s and 50s. she played piano by ear and when i was a child she used to sing and play all different songs to me at night (including this one) which i later found out were all popular folk and country and western songs from the 1920s to 60s. wicked!

[specialedd13]

i dont think anyone can beat him though

[agingstoner]

Is the little girl singing or just trying to keep from falling off the chair? Great stuff!

[Ullarobinlilly]

Oh I love it!!! Thanxx from Berlin/ Germany

[frailer2007]

Yes it's the standard C except dropped a fret to B.

[kcnccarolina]

Amazing, love seeing my 'ol neighbors, they would be a super act @ our karaoke place.