We of the Trees love to take classic songs and reinterpret them, adding our harmonic spins, turns, and twists. We began formally recording early in 2025 with Logan Gambill of Hear! Here! Studios in St. Albans, W.Va. One of the tunes that arose from that session was our cover of ‘Oh, Shenandoah,’ performed and recorded live in Logan’s studio, which he mixed and we fine-tuned after a round of feedback. This version features Ray Garnett on ethereal viola; Jim Probst on crystalline lap dulcimer; and Douglas John Imbrogno on vocals and a plugged-in classical Guild guitar.
"Oh Shenandoah" (as this link notes) has also been called “Across the Wide Missouri," "Rolling River,” and “World of Misery" and is a traditional folk tune “sung in the Americas of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century.”:
The song "Shenandoah" appears to have originated with American and Canadian voyageurs or fur traders traveling down the Missouri River in canoes and has developed several different sets of lyrics. Some lyrics refer to the Oneida chief Shenandoah and a canoe-going trader who wants to marry his daughter. By the mid 1800s versions of the song had become a sea shanty heard or sung by sailors in various parts of the world … "Shanadore" was printed as part of William L. Alden's article "Sailor Songs" in the July 1882 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.
Interestingly (to us song-sourcing nerds, anyway) in a 1930s letter to a British newspaper, a former sailor who worked aboard clipper ships between Australia and Great Britain in the 1880s said he thought the song ‘had originated as an African American spiritual which developed into a work song.’
As ever with old songs, there are multiple variations in lyrics. So, you often must choose the variations that work for your interpretation of a tune. I had long thought the Shenandoah River was at the heart of this tune (reflected in the map and imagery I used in the video). But the Missouri River, too, vies for that starring role. And in the quickie music-video I threw together above to share our freshly recorded take, I nod to the tradition that the song recollects a likely doomed love affair between a ‘voyageur’ (what a fine word) and native American Indian lover. As the link above notes, the life of such traders and voyagers into native lands was an arduous, lonely one. I imagine that finding and losing a true love out in the rolling hills and along the tumbling riverways accounts for the keening and longing which, to my ear, courses through '‘Oh, Shenandoah.’ And here is a grace note to that long-ago era in the Americas:
“The canoe-going fur-trading voyageurs were great singers, and songs were an important part of their culture.”
Just as songs remain to this day. Important to my, to our, to your and to anyone’s culture, whichever you may inhabit. Researching this tune, too, opens it out into some welcome cross-cultural currents and encounters between different peoples, from the world’s riverways to its ocean waves. One might long, also, to hear the other side of this relationship turned into song, as well. ~ Douglas John Imbrogno
‘OH, SHENADOAH’ Music Vdeo by THROUGH the TREES| Spring 2025
JIM PROBST: Lap Dulcimer
RAY GARNETT: Viola
DOUGLAS JOHN IMBROGNO: Vocals and acoustic guitar
BAND FOOTAGE: Logan Gambill
VIDEO PRODUCTION: Douglas John Imbrogno
STILL IMAGERY of SHENANDOAH RIVER: southernspaces.org/2004/shenandoah-valley
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