jazz
norway
cover
danny boy
grandpaerik
erikvanderlende
Story behind the song
Wikipedia tells: "Danny Boy" is a song with lyrics written by English lawyer Frederic Weatherly in 1910, and set to the traditional Irish melody of "Londonderry Air" in 1913.
In 1910, in Bath, Somerset, the English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly initially wrote the words to "Danny Boy" to a tune other than "Londonderry Air". One story is that his sister-in-law Margaret Enright Weatherly sent him a copy of "Londonderry Air" in 1913 and Weatherly modified the lyrics of "Danny Boy" to fit its rhyme and meter.[1][2] A different story has Jess singing the air to Weatherly in 1912 with different lyrics. Yet another story is that Frederic did not set the poem to any tune, but that, in 1913, Margaret, who, with her husband Edward Weatherly, was living at the Neosho mine near Ouray, Colorado in the US, set it to the "Londonderry Air" which she had heard as a child in California played by her father and other Irish railway workers.[3]
Weatherly gave the song to the vocalist Elsie Griffin, who made it one of the most popular songs of the new century. Ernestine Schumann-Heink produced the first recording of "Danny Boy" in 1915.
Jane Ross of Limavady is credited with collecting the melody of "Londonderry Air" in the mid-19th century from a musician she encountered.[4]