Rove Riley Rove turns up at old-time jams and on a handful of modern records. Tracing it back further is harder than it looks. The documented trail runs to one field recording from 1939 and then stops.
Where it came from
The one source anyone can point to is a recording made on June 10, 1939. Thaddeus C. Willingham sang it for collector Herbert Halpert during the Southern States Recording Expedition, and the recording sits in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Before that, the record goes quiet. The song has no Roud number. It has no Traditional Tune Archive entry. It does not appear in the standard Appalachian collections, and no commercial recording from the 78 era has surfaced. That is unusual for a song that feels this old.
The opening line about going up on a mountain and giving a horn a blow is a floating verse. It moves between old-time songs and shows up in several, so its presence proves nothing about this song in particular.
Modern players know it from the revival. Bruce Molsky, Tony Furtado, and others have recorded it, and their versions are where most current players learned it.
How it works
Jams call it in G. The song is short, the melody repeats, and the verses trade around the circle the way they do in most old-time songs of this kind.
One note on rights
This page prints no lyrics, and the reason is honest uncertainty rather than a known copyright.
A song can be traditional in origin and still reach us through a modern arrangement that carries its own rights. With only a 1939 field recording documented, there is no way to tell whether the verses that circulate today came down from that performance or were shaped by a revival-era player. Until someone establishes what the 1939 recording actually contains, printing a verse set here would be a guess.
Songs with a clear public domain record carry full lyrics and free sheet music in the songbook.
Sources
The 1939 recording is catalogued at the Library of Congress as Rove, Riley, rove, performed by Thaddeus C. Willingham, from the Herbert Halpert 1939 Southern States Recording Expedition.