Cheer, Boys, Cheer (II)

DESCRIPTION: "Cheer, boys, cheer! No more of idle sorrow, Courage, true hearts, shall bear us on our way." The sailors (soldiers? emigrants?) are urged to be happy as they leave England in search of fortune. They set out for a new land
AUTHOR: Words: Charles Mackay / Music: Henry Russell (1812-1900) (sources: Scott, Winstock-SongsAndMusicOfTheRedcoats)
EARLIEST DATE: 1859 (Dime-Song-Book #1/72)
KEYWORDS: patriotic nonballad travel home farming
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Scott-EnglishSongBook, pp. 86-87, "Cheer! Boys, Cheer!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Winstock-SongsAndMusicOfTheRedcoats, pp. 165-170, "Cheer, boys, cheer!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hylands-Mammoth-Hibernian-Songster, pp. 83-84, "Cheer! Boys, Cheer!" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #290, p. 20, "Cheer Boys, Cheer" (1 reference); also probably #291, p. 20, "Cheer! Boys, Cheer!" (2 references)
Dime-Song-Book #5/72, p. 15 and #5/64, p. 15, "Cheer, Boys, Cheer" (1 text)
Roud #13845
NOTES [668 words]: Although I have not seen the broadsides involved, Edwin Wolf 2nd, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Political Broadsides 1850-1870, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963, p. 20, lists two broadsides with the title "Cheer, Boys, Cheer," which are clearly related to this song. This would date the song to the 1870s or earlier. No author is listed.
Henry Russell wrote the tunes (and perhaps occasionally the lyrics) to more than a dozen songs in the Index, although only a few became truly popular. The list includes:
-- Woodman, Spare That Tree (probably his most popular piece)
-- A Life on the Ocean Wave
-- Cheer, Boys, Cheer (II)
-- Wind of the Winter Night
-- I'm Afloat, I'm Afloat (The Rover of the Sea)
-- Some Love to Roam (The Pirate's Life for Me)
-- Life of the Bold Buccaneer
-- If I Had But a Thousand a Year
-- The Main-Truck (A Leap for Life; The Captain's Son)
-- Rockaway (On Old Long Island's Sea-Girt Shore)
-- There's a Good Time Coming (probably); this was said to have sold 400,000 copies of the sheet music
-- The Indian Hunter (III) (probably)
-- Grandmother's Chair (either this or the following)
-- The Old Arm Chair (I) (either this or the preceding)
In an interesting footnote, Charles Dodgson (not yet famous as Lewis Carroll) attended a concert by Russell on February 9, 1857. Dodgson's verdict: "As a singer he does not strike me as anything remarkable. He is an amusing lecturer" (Edward Wakeling, editor, Lewis Carroll's Diaries: The Private Journals of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Volume 3, January 1857 to April 1858, Lewis Carroll Society, 1995, p. 23).
This sees to be a minority opinion. According to Jon W. Finson, The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 113, "Russell (1812-1900) was also British and began his career as a member of 'The Children's Opera Company' at the Drury Lane Theater. In 1825 he departed for Bologna to study at the conservatory there, since Italian opera was all the rage in London at the time.... [He] emigrated to Canada, settling later in Rochester, New York, during the 1830s. He stayed in the United States just long enough to take the pulse of American popular song, and before he returned to London in 1842, he produced many early hits. In fact, he was probably the most influential composer of his generation."
His autobiography was entitled "Cheer! Boy! Cheer! Memories of Men and Music," and was published in 1895.
Harold Simpson, A Century of Ballads, 1810-1910, Mills & Boon, 1910, devotes a chapter to "The Songs of Henry Russell." Among his comments:
"The songs of Henry Russell mark something of a new departure in ballad-writing, and may be said to have introduced the taste for the 'descriptive' ballad, so much in vogue at one time. The sentiment of many of them is simple almost to pathos, but it caught the public fancy of that period, helped by the undoubted catchiness of the tunes. The words of many of them were written by Charles Mackay, a prolific writer of verse" (p 129).
"'Henry Russell,' said a writer once, 'believed in songs that had a purpose and many were the missions which he had set himself to imitate or participate from the platform.' To this category belong 'The Maniac,' which was written to expose the evils of private lunatic asylums, 'The Gambler's Wife,' an 'The Slave Ship.' Of 'The Maniac' there is an amusing little anecdote. It was to be sung by a famous Italian opera basso at a benefit concert given by Henry Russell. When, however, the singer was trying it over at rehearsal, the opening line of the song, 'Hush! 'tis the night watch,' came out something like this: 'Hosh! 'tis the night vash,' which produced roars of laughter from everyone in the theatre. Needless to say,, Russell got him to substitute another song" (p. 132).
He apparently retired from performing at about the age of fifty but came back at age eighty for at least a few events, and proved able to still draw an audience (p. 136). .- RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: Wins165

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