More Kentucky Babes

Back in May we looked at the 1907 recording of "Kentucky Babe" by the Vassar Girls Quartet. While wandering aimlessly around YouTube, I've just now stumbled upon several other versions of the song.

Most interesting of all to my tastes: an extremely rare early "Colgate Comedy Hour" TV clip of Dean Martin & the Four Vagabonds performing the tune. Dean never recorded or performed the song again. But there's also versions by The Lennon Sisters, The Clovers, The Crew-Cuts, and even a rendition at the Maconaquah High School 1985 Talent Show.

Kentucky Babe

One from our Creeps Records blog:


Composed by Adam Geibel and Richard Henry Buck in 1896, this obscure tune was recorded by the Vassar Girls Quartet on an Edison Cylinder in 1907. To the novice ear, its melody may sound nebulous and impenetrably cornball - and, well, it really sort of is - but stay with it for the duration of the recording and see if its haunting ethereal tones don't reach you on some level. I can still hear it in my head hours after listening to it, and how often can you say that about a cylinder recording?

Vassar Girls Quartet - Kentucky Babe (mp3)