The Cuckoo, She's a Pretty Bird

Thursday Mayhem 14 Noon to 2pm
Hosted by Art Crimes

The traditional song ?The Cuckoo,? as sung by Clarence Ashley in 1929, served as one of the guideposts to the mysteries of traditional song for many a young folksinger who might have set a banjo on their knee during the American Folk Revival of the late fifties and early sixties. Whether they had any idea of what the song is about is another story entirely, as Ashley?s version collapses numerous ancient threads into one inscrutable quilt of a song. Art Crimes attempts to peel away some of the layers with folksong scholars Rennie Sparks (of the Handsome Family) and author Greil Marcus, but we?ll all still be scratching our heads afterwards.