YOUNG EWING ALLISON
Young Ewing Allison (1853 – 1932) was an American writer and newspaper editor. In 1873, he moved to Evansville, Indiana, where he worked as a newspaper editor. The quality of his reporting caught the attention of the managing editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal; and in 1880, Allison was taken on as city editor. In 1887 he founded a trade journal, The Insurance Field and was its editor until 1926. Allison was a writer of prose and verse and is best remembered for his poem “The Derelict”, written to complete the famous verse fragment by Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island, “Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest”. He also wrote the libretto to Henry Waller’s The Ogallallas, the first American-Indian opera, in 1890. Allison also played a prominent role in the establishment of Federal Hill – the mansion in Bardstown, Kentucky that is said to have inspired Stephen Foster’s song “My Old Kentucky Home” – as a state historic site in 1922. (More from Wikipedia)
The other Chris Wilson song, “The Derelict” is even better – it is the “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum” pirate song. The original song was made up by Robert Louis Stevenson for his 1883 adventure tale, Treasure Island. Young Ewing Allison, a newspaperman of that era, wrote a full poem based on the short verse included in the novel. Accompanied by a gritty rock band called (appropriately enough) the Barbary Coasters (also from San Francisco), the lyrics are taken from that poem and I believe include all six stanzas. I also have the full CD by Chris Wilson that includes both songs, Back on the Barbary Coast.
(March 2015)
