Aimee McPherson

DESCRIPTION: Aimee McPherson, radio evangelist, vanishes after a camp meeting; later claiming she was kidnapped. A grand jury investigation uncovers a "love-nest" at Carmel-by-the-Sea. She's jailed and bailed out; her paramour vanishes.
AUTHOR: Words: Unknown/Music: probably derived from Cab Calloway
EARLIEST DATE: 1961 (recording, Pete Seeger)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Aimee McPherson, radio evangelist, vanishes after a camp meeting; upon returning, she claims she was kidnapped. A grand jury investigation uncovers a "love-nest" at Carmel-by-the-Sea, where "the dents in the mattress fitted Aimee's caboose." She's jailed and bailed out; her paramour vanishes. Last lines: "If you don't get the moral then you're the gal for me/'Cause there's still a lot of cottages down at Carmel-by-the-Sea"
KEYWORDS: sex abduction bawdy humorous clergy
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1926 - The "disappearance" of Aimee Semple MacPherson
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 189, "Aimee McPherson" (1 text)
DT, AIMEEMC*
Roud #10296
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Aimee McPherson" (on PeteSeeger39)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Hi-De-Ho Man" (tune)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Aimee Semple McPherson
The Ballad of Aimee McPherson
NOTES [151 words]: The song tells the story pretty accurately. - PJS
Aimee Semple MacPherson (1890-1944) was truly larger than life. Born Aimee Kennedy, she married Robert Semple in 1908; he died in China on missionary work in 1910. In 1912 she married Harold MacPherson, whom she divorced in 1921. In 1918, she founded the Foursquare Gospel church (a Pentecostal sect which still exists, though it's not overly large). 1926 saw her disappearance. A third marriage failed in 1931. She died in 1944, of a heart attack or drug overdose.
Everyone seems to have learned the song from the singing of Pete Seeger, who began singing the song some time in the 1950s, according to Ed Cray. Seeger got it from John A. Lomax, who picked it (he thought) in the 1930s but never published it or, seemingly, documented it. The tune is based on "Willie the Weeper" or the Cab Calloway variants "Minnie the Moocher" and "The Hi-De-Ho Man." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FSWB189A

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