Welcome to a lost classic of hoofcare humor, this time from our friends in Hollywood.
If you scroll through the blog, you will see that Popeye and Spike Jones have been featured in previous articles. The Popeye video made the Top Ten of all-time viewed stories on this blog.
While all three videos were made during World War II, let's move ahead to the post-war era and see how Hollywood could have used horseshoeing as a crossover way to get people to laugh, by adding popular music.
This Sunday, it's Walt Disney, Himself. A very old Donald Duck cartoon has been overdubbed with the classic recording of The Blacksmith Blues by Ella Mae Morse, a vocalist who was discovered in Texas in 1939. She was just 14 years old when she ran away and joined Jimmy Dorsey's band and later, Nelson Riddle's orchestra.
Here are the lyrics:
Down in old Kentucky
Where horseshoes are lucky
There's a village smithy standin' under a chestnut tree
Hear the hammer knockin'
See the hammer rockin'
He sings the boogie blues while he's hammerin' on the shoes
See the hot sparks a-flyin'
Like Fourth of July-in'
He's even got the horses cloppin', pop! down the avenue
Folks love the rhythm
The clang-bangin' rhythm
You'll get a lot o' kicks out of the Blacksmith Blues...
If you scroll through the blog, you will see that Popeye and Spike Jones have been featured in previous articles. The Popeye video made the Top Ten of all-time viewed stories on this blog.
While all three videos were made during World War II, let's move ahead to the post-war era and see how Hollywood could have used horseshoeing as a crossover way to get people to laugh, by adding popular music.
This Sunday, it's Walt Disney, Himself. A very old Donald Duck cartoon has been overdubbed with the classic recording of The Blacksmith Blues by Ella Mae Morse, a vocalist who was discovered in Texas in 1939. She was just 14 years old when she ran away and joined Jimmy Dorsey's band and later, Nelson Riddle's orchestra.
Here are the lyrics:
Down in old Kentucky
Where horseshoes are lucky
There's a village smithy standin' under a chestnut tree
Hear the hammer knockin'
See the hammer rockin'
He sings the boogie blues while he's hammerin' on the shoes
See the hot sparks a-flyin'
Like Fourth of July-in'
He's even got the horses cloppin', pop! down the avenue
Folks love the rhythm
The clang-bangin' rhythm
You'll get a lot o' kicks out of the Blacksmith Blues...
The Blacksmith's Blues was probably Ella Mae's biggest hit and most important recording. She's hailed in the annals of rock 'n roll as being a trailblazer for Elvis Presley and other 1950s rockers because she was one of the first white performers to record what would have been exclusively African-American music. And she did it on a major record label, Capitol Records.
Danny Ward, owner of Danny Ward's Horseshoeing School in Martinsville, Virginia, has the original sheet music to "The Blacksmith's Blues". He handed this treasure to me once, thinking that I'd be able to belt it out on the piano for him the next day, but it was a little tough for me. I'm still plunking it out but now that I have heard Ella Mae, I understand the syncopation a little better. I should have known this song would have a special (and familiar) rhythm!
Thanks, Ella Mae and Walt Disney.
Click here to view the original 1942 Donald Duck cartoon "The Village Smithy".
Click here for the full 1952 recording of Ella Mae Morse singing "The Blacksmith's Blues".
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