Dink's Song

"Dink's Song"
Song
Written	Unknown
Genre	Folk
Songwriter(s)	Unknown

"Dink's Song" (sometimes known as "Fare Thee Well") is an American folk song played by many folk revival musicians such as Pete Seeger, Fred Neil, Bob Dylan and Dave Van Ronk, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Cisco Houston as well as more recent musicians like Jeff Buckley. The song tells the story of a woman deserted by her lover when she needs him the most.

The first historical record of the song was by ethnomusicologist John Lomax in 1909, who recorded it as sung by an African American woman called Dink, as she washed her man's clothes in a tent camp of migratory levee-builders on the bank of the Greater Calhoun Bayou River, a few miles from Houston, Texas and the University of Houston.

The first publication of the music was in American Ballads and Folk Songs, edited by Lomax and his son, Alan Lomax, and published by Macmillan in 1934.

Josh White recorded the song, as "Fare Thee Well," in 1945. It appeared on his first album, entitled "Songs by Josh White," for Asch Records (A 348). (Asch Records was the predecessor of Folkways Records). Like the rest of the songs on the album, it was performed solo, with guitar. White re-recorded the song at least once later in his career, as "Dink's Blues". It appears on the 1957 Mercury album, "Josh White's Blues" (MG 20203).

Gloria Lynne recorded the song for a concept album created and produced by Harry Belafonte titled Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music. In Lynne's version the song is called "Honey." The song was also recorded by Burl Ives (circa 1965).

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Wikipedia