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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 19 2007, 10:15 AM EDT (current) | LeslieGail | |
| Oct 19 2007, 10:13 AM EDT | LeslieGail | 279 words added |
Changes
Key: Additions Deletions
| Art Wooten's Hornpipe | Hubie says: This tune was collected from fiddler "Uncle" Bob Walters of Burt County, Nebraska, by R. P. Christeson in about 1950. Walters appears to have been the sole source of the tune. Christeson recorded Walters in 29 sessions over a ten-year period. Walters told him that Wooten was "...a Midwest fiddler of some note, years ago." The original version by Bob Walters is on the MSOTFA (Missouri State Old Time Fiddler's Association) Cassette # 106, Drunken Wagoner (1993), and the music is printed in Christeson's book, Old-Time Fiddler's Repertory, Vol. 1, Univ. of Missouri, 1973. Another tune, "Art Wooten's Quadrille," is also in that book and can be heard played by Bob Walters, again, on Christeson's recording, also entitled Old-Time Fiddler's Repertory (1976). The score published by Phillips in his Volume 2 was also transcribed from the Christeson recording of Walters' fiddling |
| Possum on a/the Rail | Hubie says: This one is really interesting. It was one of the very earliest of minstrel songs and was published ca. 1836 as “Settin’ on a Rail.” The cover had a very derogatory caricature of an African American, banjo in hand, sneaking up on a raccoon, asleep on the top rail of a fence. Until recently, the cover was available on line, but has now been removed, apparently. The tune has endured to this day after crossing into the traditional fiddlers’ repertoire, but the species of the critter on the rail has become confused. Although clearly a raccoon in the cover illustration, and so identified in the lyrics, it has become confused with an Opossum. The Mississippi Possum Hunters, with Lonnie Ellis on fiddle on this cut, recorded it as “Possum on a Rail” in 1930. You might think they changed the animal to conform with the name of their band, but others have made the same mistake without any such excuse. Dichter and Shapiro, for example, in their Handbook of Early American Sheet Music 1768-1889, describe the sheet as showing “...a fence where opossum is sleeping peacefully. For those who are interested in what happened, the song itself tells us that Mr. Possum done got away.” The next year, in 1931, it was again recorded, this time with the title “Raccoon on a Rail,” by the Hometown Boys, Bill Helms on fiddle with guitar and banjo accompaniment. You have a copy of the “Possum” title on Volume 1 of the Mississippi CD set you just purchased. The tune also reminds me of the one Melvin Wine played and called “The Possum’s Tail Is Bare.” |
