Young Rapoleon (The Bonny Bunch of Roses) - Joseph Decosimo

"Young Rapoleon" is a "Bonny Bunch or Roses" variant from Tennessee ballad singer/banjo player Dee Hicks. It's a wonderfully cryptic alternative version and a fav on my new record "While You Were Slumbering."
https://josephdecosimo.bandcamp.com/a...
https://open.spotify.com/track/2Tmtb4...

You can hear Dee Hicks beautiful rendition on "Five Miles Out Of Town: Traditional Music From The Cumberland Plateau Volume 2" (County 787). He learned it from his father, Daniel (1868-1948), who learned it from his father, Joseph (born c. 1816). In Dee Hicks’s singing (and perhaps before), Napoleon had transformed into Rapoleon. In a delightful departure from most versions of this ballad, it conflates Napoleon’s story with that of his tubercular son Napoleon II. Broadside versions of "the Bonny Bunch of Roses" were circulating around England, Ireland, and Scotland by the 1830s. How it made it's way into Hicks family repertoire and onto the Cumberland Plateau is a mystery. I think Nic Jones's guitar playing plus various Old-time TN banjo styles inspired my approach here. This gourd banjo was made by Jason Romero.

Lessons and booking: https://www.josephdecosimo.com/
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my recordings: https://josephdecosimo.bandcamp.com/a...