Song of the Day 1/14: Jake Xerxes Fussell, “The Bells of Rhymney”

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

The best-known version of “The Bells of Rhymney” came out of sunny southern California when the Byrds put it on their first album in 1965. But the song was born amid the dank coal mines of South Wales.

It grew from a poem written in 1938 and based on an old nursery rhyme. The poem was a response to the failure of a general strike in the UK by miners and their supporters after coal barons refused to raise their pitiful wages while also requiring an increased workload

Church bells all around Wales ring out in sympathy for the unsuccessful strikers. They ring in Rhymney, they ring in Rhondda. They ring in Swansea, they ring in Merthyer. They ring in Blaina, they ring in Caerphilly.

Pete Seeger, the influential folk singer and folklorist, found the poem in a book and turned it into a song he recorded in 1958. Judy Collins soon followed with her version. That’s the one that influenced the Byrds.

It has been recorded many times since then, including versions by Bob Dylan and the Band, Tommy Makem, the Alarm, John Denver, Robyn Hitchcock and, uh, Cher.

The most recent version I know of is by Jake Xerxes Fussell, a contemporary singer and guitar player who combines his love of old folk songs with a musical style that sounds both authentic and fresh and snappy enough to appeal to fans of a more serious kind of pop music.

Fussell is the son of a folklorist and has done academic field research as well his own collecting of songs to record. He has said his version of “The Bells of Rhymney” was influenced by a gospel musician he knew in Memphis before starting his recording career. He in turn was influenced by his father, who played both blues and gospel.

Here’s Fussell followed by the Byrds. You might want to listen to the more familiar jangly Byrds version first for a good sense of what Fussell did with the song.

Here’s the Judy Collins version that inspired the Byrds.