Sally O’Malley

Fred Godfrey & Billy Williams, 1910.

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Listen to a clip of a 1911 Zonophone recording by Billy Williams, reissued in 1913 on the Cinch label.

Recordings

Billy Williams recorded three versions of this song: 3 February 1911 for Zonophone, ca. March 1911 for Homophon, and ca. December 1911 for Beka Grand. Reissues appeared on several other labels.¹

Manuscript of lyrics, believed to be in Fred Godfrey’s hand. Note the claim of sole authorship by Godfrey and the corrections in another hand, probably that of Billy Williams’s son, Billy Jr., to whom this manuscript belonged before being donated to the National Library of Australia. Billy Jr. most likely made the corrections to conform with the lyrics as sung on recordings by his father. Also note the original subtitle, “The Queen Of Naukipoo Isle,” which quickly got changed to “The Queen Of The Cannibal Isle,” as reflected in the lyrics. In recordings, “King Naukipoo” also became “King Kangaroo,” likely at the instigation of Australian Billy Williams. (Documentation Collection, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Australia)

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Note

1  For comprehensive discographies of recordings by Billy Williams, see Brian Rust,
     British Music Hall on Record (Harrow, UK: Gramophone, 1979); and Frank
     Andrews and Ernie Bayly, Billy Williams’ Records: A Study in Discography
     (Bournemouth, UK: Talking Machine Review, 1982). For a collection of recordings of
     all the Billy Williams songs, see J.P. Myerscough, Billy Williams: All the Songs
     [8-CD set and accompanying notes] (Lowestoft, UK: Music Hall Masters, 2001).