Wreck of the Shenandoah

DESCRIPTION: "At four o'clock one evening On a warm September day A great and mighty airship From Lakehurst flew away." The dirigible encounters a storm and is wrecked. Fourteen people die. The mother of one of the crew watches in vain for the vessel
AUTHOR: Maggie Andrews (pseudonym of Carson J. Robison)
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (recordings, Vernon Dalhart, Guy Massey)
KEYWORDS: technology disaster death wreck mother
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sep 3, 1925 - Wreck of the naval dirigible Shenandoah, commanded by Lt. Commander Zachary Landsdowne
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 219, "The Wreck of the Shenandoah" (1 text)
ST BrII219 (Full)
Roud #4150
RECORDINGS:
Vernon Dalhart, "Wreck of the Shenandoah" (Columbia 15041-D, 1925) (Edison 51620, 1925) (Cameo 809, 1925) (OKeh 40460 [as Tobe Little], 1925) (Vocalion 15125 [as Jep Fuller], 1925)
Guy Massey, "Wreck of the Shenandoah" (Perfect 12218, 1925)
NOTES [285 words]: This is item dG52 in Laws's Appendix II. - RBW
I would've placed bets on "Maggie Andrews" being a pseudonym for Andrew Jenkins, but a website on the Shenandoah wreck (http://tinyurl.com/tbdx-Shenandoah) states that it was actually a pseudonym for the team of Dalhart and Carson Robison. - PJS
According to Norm Cohen, "Maggie Andrews" was the maiden name of Robison's mother, and he copyrighted a lot of material under it. Of course, Robison also worked with Andrew Jenkins, so there could have been at least a little cross-influence. In fact. the 1925 sheet music for "Floyd Collins," one of Jenkins's songs, was published with the first page of "The Wreck of the Shenandoah" on the back cover to try to sell the song. It's an interesting item -- the earliest instance I can recall of a piano arrangement with chord diagrams (although the chords are for ukulele in GCEA tuning). That same first page is included in the sheet music of Jenkins's "The Dream of the Miner's Child" (even though, in that case, they had to add two pages to the sheet music to include the plug). Evidently the publishers thought the had a potential major hit on their hands. The evidence does not support their belief.
There were at least two sheet music editions of this. The fancier one, printed in black and yellow, shows three photos of the "Shenandoah," one in flight and two after the crash.
It's interesting that the two recordings of this were by Dalhart and by Guy Massey. Massey was a cousin of Dalhart's -- in fact, Dalhart originally gave him partial credit (although not much money) for "The Prisoner's Song." Presumably Massey would have heard it from the Dalhart/Robison circle. Wish we had exact recording dates! - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: BrII219

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