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 [409 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)
-- The Indian Hunter (III) (probably)
-- Grandmother's Chair (either this or the following)
-- The Old Arm Chair (I) (either this or the preceding)
-- There's a Good Time Coming (probably)
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. - RBW
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