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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 22 2008, 8:35 AM EDT (current) | LeslieGail | 1 word added, 28 words deleted |
| Oct 19 2007, 6:41 PM EDT | LeslieGail | 56 words added |
Changes
Key: Additions Deletions
| Bibb County Hoedown | Hubie says: Bibb County Hoedown" was recorded by a band called Seven Foot Dilly and His Dill Pickles, which was fronted by John Dilleshaw (c.1896-1941) in Atlanta in 1930. "Dilly," who was not really seven feet tall, but "a good six foot seven," was a guitar player, not a fiddler. He used several good fiddlers on his records, and on this one it was Lowe Stokes, formerly with the Skillet Lickers and, at age 22, the winner of the famous 1924 Atlanta fiddle contest over previous champion, 54 year-old "Fiddlin" John Carson. The original is reissued on the Document CD DOCD-8002, John Dilleshaw Complete Works in Chronological Order, and on other compilations. Bibb is the Georgia County containing the city of Macon as its seat. Formed in 1822, it was named for Dr. William Wyatt Bibb, who was later the first elected governor of Georgia. |
| Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains | Hubie says: I see you played "Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains," and I can't resist telling one of my favorite stories about that name. It seems that a folklorist was collecting in Tennessee in the 1930s, where one of his informants, an elderly fiddler, was called "Uncle John." "'Uncle John' delighted in playing for visitors and sooner or later he would say, 'Now I want to play you my favorite; I calls hit Napoleon Crossing the Rocky Mountains.' One day a teacher at Pine Mountain said, 'Uncle John, you mean Napoleon Crossing the Alps.' 'I don't know, maybe I do,' he replied. Some time later he was playing for a visitor and at his usual point announced, 'Now I want to play you my favorite; I calls hit Napoleon Crossing the Rockies. Some folks say Napoleon never crossed the Rockies, that he crossed the Alps, but historians differ on that point.'" (Allen H. Eaton, Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands. Dover, [1937] 1973, quoted by Andrew Kuntz.) |
| Jeff Sturgeon | Hubie says: I’ve recently taught this tune at one of my banjo workshops. John Salyer is indeed the source and you can hear him play it on Berea College’s Appalachian Center Cassette AC003, entitled John Morgan Salyer: Home Recordings – 1941-1942, Volume 1. It’s available from them online at $8.00. Or, you can hear it on the Digital Library of Appalachia web site, #32 in the list of Salyer tunes. |
| Old Kentucky Whiskey | Hubie says: The original "Old Kentucky Whiskey" came into the old-time revival repertoire by means of the recording by The Indian Creek Delta Boys on their Davis Unlimited LP, released in 1978. It is now available on a reissue CD, Indian Creek Delta Boys Vol. II. This Illinois-based band had Lynn "Chirps" Smith on mandolin with fine fiddle by Garry Harrison and wonderful banjo by Dave Miller. They got the tune from a Noah Beavers of Elkville, Illinois (born 1898), who learned it around 1915 (age 17) from an unknown Kentucky fiddler. I enjoy all of their music. Bill adds: Hubie mentioned that the Indian Creek Delta Boys music from the 70's had been reisssued so I went looking -- Spring Fed Records has Vol2 (which he mentioned) and Vol 1 for sale via the web: http://www.springfedrecords.com/SFR-DU-33042IndianCreekDeltaBoysVolume2.htm http://www.springfedrecords.com/SFR-DU-33042IndianCreekDeltaBoysVolume1.htm |
| Rattletrap | Leslie says: You guys are going to LOVE this tune by the time I’m done with you. Someone told me this was a new tune but on the Digital Library of Appalachia there’s a tune called Old Granny Rattletrap by Kentucky fiddler Manon Campbell. Sounds all most like the one the Hilltoppers do that Mac taught us. Also doesn’t it sound like a version of Fire on the Mountain a little bit? (the John Salyer version on DLA, for instance ) http://www.aca-dla.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Berea&CISOPTR=583&REC=4 And here is another 1924 version of Old Granny Rattletrap by Uncle “Am” Stuart I LOVE this version http://honkingduck.com/BAZ/honkingduck78s.php?qt=year So is Rattletrap actually an old tune, really called Old Granny Rattletrap? Someone told me it was a new tune but I don’t think this can be true (or I guess it depends on what you call “new.”) Plus I also saw a reference that it was also called Granny will your Dog Bite but the versions of that tune that I’ve heard don’t sound as raunchy and good and sound more like some of the versions of Fire in the Mountain to me. Hubie adds: I think you’re right. It is an old tune that is sometimes called “Old Granny Rattletrap.” When I heard the Hilltoppers’ version from Mac, I thought it sounded like the Red Headed Fiddlers’ 1930 recording of “Far in the Mountain.” Now that I hear Uncle Am Stuart’s 1924 record of “Old Granny Rattletrap,” I’m convinced they are all the same tune. Gus Meade, who compiled that great discography of commercial records of traditional music agrees. On pages 705-06, he lists both Stuart’s “Old Granny Rattletrap” and the Red Heads’ “Far in the Mountain” among some 14 recorded versions of “Fire on the Mountain.” Stuart’s is earliest, and the list includes other titles taken from verses sung to the tune, such as “Hog Eye,” and “Sal, Let Me Chaw your Rosin Some.” Gus also mentions “Tip Toe Betty Martin” as a related title. I recorded a medley of these verses on “There Are No Rules,” and included “Hog Eye,” “Granny, Will Your Dog Bite,” “Johnny, Get Your Gun,” “Chippy, Get Your Hair Cut,” and “Hi, Betty Martin, Tip-Toe Fine.” Meade also mentions a field recording of “Old Granny Rattletrap” by North Carolina fiddler Bill Hensley, c. 1940s. “Rattletrap” appears to be an abbreviated version of the title “Old Granny Rattletrap,” and may have been taken from Uncle Am Stuart’s 1924 recording. The name is at least that old, and the tune older yet. (As “Betty Martin,” it is dated back to the War of 1812.) I would suspect an earlier date for the name, perhaps as a play-party tune or skit, because it sounds like a name which would amuse young folk. There might have been a funny verse about her. Leslie Adds: Another name!!! I just got the reissue of fiddler Marcus Martin's, "When I Get My New House Done" and recognized the first tune on it called "Daddy Bowback" as a Rattletrap-sounding tune. The liner notes say that Bascom Lamar Lunsford and Bill Hensley (see Hubie's note above) fiddled "Daddy Bowback" as "Old Granny Rattletrap." |
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