Froggie Went a Courtin' 

Adam Miller sings “Froggie Went a Courtin'" Salt Lake City, Utah, September 18, 2015. Videography by Robert C. Richmond, rcr@do-some-good.com, www.do-some-good.com. Adam Miller's website is: Folksinging.org. This is a version of the oldest English-language folksong ever published in a book that is still sung today. First mentioned in a book called, Complaynt of Scotland by Wedderburn (1549), Adam learned this version from folksinger Sam Hinton (1917-2009). As a teenager in the 1930s, Sam heard it sung on a San Francisco-based NBC radio program of western music and skits called “Carefree Carnival.” Sponsored by the Signal Oil Company, the show broadcast from the stage of the Marines' Memorial Theater on Sutter Street and was hosted by “The Old Maverick,” a homespun guitar player named Charlie Marshall, who sang this version of this, one of the oldest English folksongs. Today, there are 100 different versions of “Froggie Went a Courtin,'" sung everywhere English is spoken. It’s probably the oldest English-language folksong still sung in the United States. It’s also a picture book in every children’s library in the country. The version Adam sings here is available on his best-selling CD of Traditional American Folksongs for Young Folks, “Along Came a Giant.”