Music Friday: Country Boy Is in Love With a Girl Who Wears a Diamond Ring

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you throwback tunes with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, 27-time Grammy winner Alison Krauss delivers her second-person rendition of "I'm Just a Country Boy," a song originally released by Harry Belafonte in 1954. In Krauss's 2007 version — “You're Just a Country Boy” — she tells the story of a penniless young man who is in love with the prettiest girl in town. The object of his affection wears fine jewelry and he fears that she’ll turn down his marriage proposal because he can’t afford a “store-bought ring.”

In addition to the diamonds and jewelry referenced in the song, precious metals are also used to illustrate the young man's appreciation of nature.

Krauss sings, “Ain’t gonna marry in the fall / Ain’t gonna marry in the spring / For you're in love with a pretty little girl / Who wears a diamond ring. / And you're just a country boy / Money have you none / But you’ve got silver in the stars / And gold in the mornin’ sun / Gold in the mornin’ sun.”

Later in the song, she sings about his financial struggles, "Never could afford / A store-bought ring / With a sparkling diamond stone / All you can afford / Is a loving heart / The only one you own."

Written by Fred Hellerman and Marshall Barer, the original, first-person version of "I'm Just a Country Boy" has been covered by George McCurn, Ronnie Laine, Jimmie Rodgers, Jim Croce, Jimmy Witherspoon, Roger Whittaker, David Ball, John Holt, The Brothers Four, Bobby Vinton and Bobby Vee. The most famous cover was sung by Don Williams, whose 1977 version went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Country chart.

Trivia: Barer was famous for composing the “Mighty Mouse” theme song.

Krauss included “You're Just a Country Boy” as the first track on her compilation album called A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection. That album earned a #3 position on the U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums chart and #10 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.

Born in Decatur, IL, in 1971, Alison Maria Krauss studied classical violin at age 5 and was a teenage fiddling phenomenon. She signed with Rounder Records as a 14-year-old and released her first solo album two years later.

During her stellar career, Krauss has released 14 albums while helping to renew the public's interest in bluegrass music. Krauss is the top female Grammy winner of all time with 27 wins. Only Georg Solti (31) and Quincy Jones (28) have more.

Please check out the video of Krauss performing “You're Just a Country Boy.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“You're Just a Country Boy”
Written by Marshall Barer and Fred Kellerman. Performed by Alison Krauss.

Ain’t gonna marry in the fall
Ain’t gonna marry in the spring
For you're in love with a pretty little girl
Who wears a diamond ring.

And you're just a country boy
Money have you none
But you’ve got silver in the stars
And gold in the mornin’ sun
Gold in the mornin’ sun.

Never gonna kiss
The ruby red lips
Of the prettiest girl in town
Never gonna ask her if she’d
Marry you
She'll only turn you down.

You're just a country boy
Money have you none
But you’ve got silver in the stars
And gold in the mornin’ sun
Gold in the mornin’ sun.

Never could afford
A store-bought ring
With a sparkling diamond stone
All you can afford
Is a loving heart
The only one you own.

‘Cause you're just a country boy
Money have you none
But you’ve got silver in the stars
And gold in the mornin’ sun
Gold in the mornin’ sun…

Credit: Photo by Filberthockey at en.wikipedia / Public domain.

'Scavengers' to the Rescue: Treasure Hunters Recover Engagement Ring at NY Beach

Gina Bopp was so certain that her diamond engagement ring had been swallowed up by the Atlantic Ocean that she immediately bought a faux version on Amazon.

The Queens, NY, woman had been enjoying the surf at Rockaway Beach on Monday, June 29, when the young son of one of her friends got caught by a wave.

"So, I went to go grab him, and I felt my ring sliding off my finger,” she told CBS2.

The heartbroken woman searched the shore for the next eight hours, but came up empty. When she arrived home, she went online and found a cheap replacement.

“I went on Amazon and bought a fake one because I thought there’s no way I’m going to get another one,” Bopp said.

But, then she called Merrill Kazanjian, of Metal Detecting NYC, who agreed to continue the search on Tuesday. He scoured the shoreline for three fruitless hours.

Undaunted, Kazanjian put out a call to the Scavengers, a group of friends who share the thrill of finding precious keepsakes and returning them to their owners.

"There's strength in numbers," Kazanjian told CNN, "especially at the Rockaway Beach. It's a long shot [to find a ring] so you call up the talent that you know."

Kazanjian said that metal detectorists are rare people, good folks who really love to give back.

The first Scavenger on the scene was Tracy Behling, who received her metal detector as a Christmas present.

It took Behling only 40 minutes to find Bopp's treasure. It was buried about a foot and a half deep, right where the surf met the beach.

“Here we are six months later, I found a ring,” Behling said. “That is, by far, the coolest thing I ever found.”

Bopp could hardly believe it when Behling and the Scavengers called with the great news.

"Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?" she exclaimed.

Bopp offered the team a reward for finding her ring, but all that the Scavengers requested was $40 to cover tolls and gas.

"I've seen it again and again," Kazanjian told CNN, "rather than hold on to a ring [we] would rather give it back to a person. It's the joy. It's the positive rush you get from that, to see someone smile. The world needs that in 2020."

Credits: Screen captures via CBS 2 New York.

Arkansas Woman Scores Biggest Diamond of 2020 at Crater of Diamonds State Park

While working the search field at Crater of Diamonds State Park, Beatrice Watkins joked to her two young granddaughters that their future husbands would need to revisit the site to find diamonds for their wedding rings.

What the 56-year-old Mena, Ark., resident didn't realize at the time is that she had already scored the park's biggest diamond of 2020, a 2.23-carat oblong stone, the size of an English pea and color of iced tea.

Watkins had found the unusual stone within 30 minutes of arriving at the park.

“I was searching with my daughter and granddaughters when I picked it up," Watkins said. "I thought it was shiny, but had no idea it was a diamond! My daughter googled similar-looking stones and thought it might have been iron pyrite, so I stuck it in my sack and kept sifting.”

About an hour later, Watkins and her family took a break at the park's Diamond Discovery Center and got the exciting news from a park staffer that her suspected "iron pyrite" was actually a brown diamond.

“I was so excited, I just couldn’t believe it,” Watkins said. “I still can’t believe it!”

As is customary for all of the biggest finds at the park, the amateur prospector was given the opportunity to name her diamond. She called the stone "Lady Beatrice" and said she'd probably keep it as an inheritance for her kids and grandkids.

Watkins said she found the Lady Beatrice while dry sifting soil on the north end of a culvert near the center of the park's 37.5-acre search area. The search area is actually a plowed field atop the eroded surface of an extinct, diamond-bearing volcanic pipe. Visitors have found more than 33,000 diamonds since the Crater of Diamonds opened as an Arkansas State Park in 1972.

Amateur miners get to keep what they find at the only diamond site in the world that’s open to the general public. The park had been closed for two months due to COVID-19 health concerns, but reopened on May 22, just in time for Memorial Day weekend.

So far in 2020, 139 diamonds weighing a total of 22 carats had been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro. Four of those diamonds weighed at least one carat each.

Credits: Images courtesy of Crater of Diamonds State Park.