Song of the Day 8/26: Vince Gill, “Danny Boy”

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

If country music is leaving a poor taste in your mouth thanks to Jason Aldean’s confrontational “Try That in a Small Town” or Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” you can cleanse your palate with another newly-released song by a country artist, a song about as beloved as any song could be, except maybe by the Catholic Church, the BBC and anybody who thinks they’re heard it too darned much.

Maybe that last person hasn’t heard the new version of “Danny Boy” by oft-awarded country singer Vince Gill, whose album of Ray Price tunes with steel guitarist Paul Franklin has the song as its centerpiece. You might not think of “Danny Boy” as a country song, except in the sense of Irish glens and mountain sides, but a lot of American country artists sure have. It’s not hard to draw a line from the original song to Irish immigrants in Appalachia lonely for people and places left behind.

Price was a honky-tonk pioneer who in his early days was a regular replacement for Hank Williams when Hank got too drunk to play. He basically invented the 4/4 honky tonk shuffle in songs like “Heartaches by the Number” and “Crazy Arms.” He was combining honky tonk elements with a more polished countrypolitan sound when he scored his hit with “Danny Boy” in 1967. Price used strings, but the key to Gill’s version is Franklin’s steel guitar. Johnny Cash recorded “Danny Boy” twice, the second time on his final album just before his death. Conway Twitty hit the country charts with “Danny Boy” in 1959.

The BBC banned Twitty’s version. The reason why remains hidden (at least to me), but the BBC did once have a policy of not playing anything “overly sentimental.” The Catholic Church, or at least the Providence, R.I., diocese, banned it from use at funeral masses because it has no liturgical connection. A retired Providence cop announced that if “Danny Boy” couldn’t played at his funeral he was going to “get up and walk out.”

Though Irish, the song comes by way of England and California. “Danny Boy” as we know it is credited to English barrister Frederic Weatherly, who first presented it in 1913. He had written the words a few years before but hadn’t found suitable music for it until his sister-in-law urged him to adapt them to an old Irish tune called “Londonderry Air” that was first collected by an Irish musicologist in the mid-19th century. Weatherly’s sister-in-law had heard the tune while growing up in a California mining camp.

Here’s the new version sung by Vince Gill, whose high tenor is well up to the task. There’s a reason why he’s considered one of the best singers in country music.

Gill’s primary model for “Danny Boy” was Price’s version of Willie Nelson’s “Night Life,” which also featured steel guitar, this time by the great Buddy Emmons. Nelson was in Price’s band in the early days and the two often worked together after that.