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Clip description
Buddy Williams sings a sad song about a man missing his dead mother. This clip is from the start of the song.
Curator’s notes
It is surely no accident that Buddy Williams, raised in an orphanage and a foster home, should choose to sing three songs about parents in his first recording session. This song was recorded on 7 September 1939, four days after war was declared in Europe. Williams recorded only six tracks, three of which were about separation from parents (see clip one for a song about fathers). ‘Mother dear’ has the mournful tone of a country blues song – a simple melodic line in which the voice carries enormous emotion and pain. Williams’s vocal technique here is interesting – he elongates his words to accentuate the song’s strong rhythm on the guitar. It’s a very haunting recording, especially as it was probably listened to in the next few years by many men going off to war, thinking of their own mothers. Buddy Williams enlisted soon after these songs were recorded and was wounded at Balikpapan in Borneo.
