“Ho for California (Banks of Sacramento)”
Description
The "plot" of the song varies widely, according to its use by pioneers, sailors, or gold-diggers. The chorus is fixed: "(Then) Ho! (boys), Ho! To California go! There's plenty of gold in the world, we're told, on the banks of the Sacramento"
Notes
Possibly created and certainly popularized by the Hutchinson Family (who published a text in their 1855 songbook), versions of this song are found throughout the U.S., and are well-known among sailors.
The texts are diverse (Hugill, for instance, has a version in which a sailor courts a girl and winds up with a venereal disease), but most seem to be related to the California gold rush. The tune is a variation on "Camptown Races," perhaps in turn based on "A Capital Ship." - RBW
Historical references
- 1849 - California gold rush
Cross references
- cf. "Ten Thousand Miles Away" (tune)
- cf. "A Capital Ship" (tune)
Recordings
- Logan English, "Sacramento" (on LEnglish02)
References
- Eddy 125, "California" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Warner 70, "Ho, Boys, Ho" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Doerflinger, pp. 68-70, "Sacramento" (3 texts, 2 tunes, though the last of these derives its verses from "Rolling in the Dew (The Milkmaid)")
- Colcord, pp. 105-106, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Harlow, pp. 109-110, "Banks of Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Hugill, pp. 106-114, "California," "Sacramento" (7 texts-1 in German, 3 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 95-100]
- Shay-SeaSongs, pp. 82-83, "The Banks of Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Sandburg, pp. 110-111, "California"; 111, "The Banks of Sacramento" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
- Smith/Hatt, p. 37, "On the Banks of the Sacramento" (1 text)
- Lomax-FSUSA 42, "Sacramento" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Meredith/Covell/Brown, p. 91, "Banks of the Sacramento" (1 fragmentary text, in which the singer seeks girls rather than gold; 1 tune)
- Huntington-Whalemen, pp. 174-176, "The California Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Silber-FSWB, p. 88, "Sacramento" (1 text)
- Fuld-WFM, pp. 158-159, "(De) Camptown Races--(Sacramento)"
- DT, SACRMNTO* SACRMNT2*
- ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). "Sacramento" is in Part 2, 7/21/1917.
- Roud #309
- BI, E125