Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)

Subject: Lyr Req: Mooshitanio Jimmy Driftwood
From:
Date: 13 May 03 - 01:15 AM

Can any one help? Need the Lyrics? Thanks, Jon

Subject: Jimmy Driftwood Mooshitanio
From:
Date: 13 May 03 - 01:17 AM

Can any one help on the lyrics to mooshitanio. I've got the tune and figured the chords as Em and Am E. I don't remember all the words. I lived with Uncle Jim when I was a kid.

Thanks for your help.

Jon Morris

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshitanio
From: masato sakurai
Date: 13 May 03 - 01:39 AM

No luck with the lyrics. Sound clip for Jimmie Driftwood's "Mooshatanio" is HERE (disc 2, track 26).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshitanio
From: Nerd
Date: 13 May 03 - 11:56 AM

Aww, I thought this was the ol' cow ballad "Moo shit on you!" Too bad...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshitanio
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 May 03 - 06:44 PM

Looks as though it might have been published in the February/April 1997 edition of Sing Out, if you can find someone who still has their copy...ought to be a few of them around here.

Also, Camsco Music has a wonderful boxed set of all of Jimmy's stuff with this song, of course, included. That'd be a nice set to have!

Good luck!

kat

Subject: ADD: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 May 03 - 04:58 AM

Thanks, kat - sure made it easy to find. It's in Sing Out!, Vol 41, No 4 - Feb/Mar/April 1997. It's right after an interesting interview of Jimmy Driftwood.
-Joe Offer (e-mail sent)-

---

MOOSHATANIO
(Jimmy Driftwood)

Along about 1800, I guess,
I took me a trip into the wilderness,
Crossed the Mississippi, let my rifle roar.
No white man had ever been there before,
I turned my face to the setting sun,
And I lived by my knife arid I lived by my gun.
Came to a river called the Little Buffalo
And met a purty maiden called Mooshatanio.

CHORUS
Mooshatanio, Mooshatanio,
I hugged her and I kissed her
On the Little Buffalo-oh,
Mooshatanio, Mooshatanio,
The big chief's daughter was
The Mooshatanio,

A brave called Buzzard and a brave called Crow
And a brave called Hawk loved the Mooshatanio.
They had a big battle with the arrow and the bow,
The Hawk shot the Buzzard and the Buzzard shot the Crow.
The Hawk and I went a-huntin on the hill.
And I knew it was me he was wantin' to kill,
I left him a-layin' where the honeysuckles grow
And said goodbye to my
Mooshatanio. CHORUS

I went back home my mother to see
And stayed 30 years in Middle Tennessee.
When I got back to the Little Buffalo
They showed me the grave of Mooshatanio.
The young chief's heart was brave and true,
And his hair was red and his eyes were blue.
His father and his mother, he let me know,
Was the great white spirit and the Mooshatanio.

CHORUS
Mooshatanio. Mooshatanio
He was my son but I couldn't let him know.
Mooshatanio, Mooshatanio,
The great white spirit
And the Mooshatanio.

Mooshatanio, Mooshatanio,
I hugged her and I kissed her
On the Little Buffalo.
Mooshatanio, Mooshatanio,
The big chief's daughter was
The Mooshatanio.

©1959, Warden Music Co.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 May 03 - 06:57 AM

Well that's kewl, Joe. I just dug around on google and came upon an index for Sing Out! which seemed to list it. Glad that it was correct! Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 14 May 03 - 11:03 AM

Joe, sure glad you and Kat found the lyrics. I was thinking I would have to dig them out of the Folk Center archives and type them up. You saved me an hour today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From:
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 05:05 PM

I've been semi-pro musicalioso since age 9. Ain't no big timer, but have a lot of great memories .... and someone out there may appreciate my relating this one. A new friend of mine had the album with Mushatanio on it. He loaned it to me after hearing me at a coffee shop, thinking that I might appreciate it. Boy is that an understatement. I was into country blues fingerpicking, could hold a tune, and sang songs in the style of Leon Redbone, Doc, Merle, Norman Blake, etc. sprinkled with a few cowboy thangs .... anyway, I fell head over heels for those songs of Mr. Driftwood's, and learned everyone of em ... couldn't help it. Even sang em on a radio/tv broadcast down here around new orleans. Years later, I accidentally ended up in Mountain View ... didn't even know jimmie lived there. I had been working on Kottke fingerpicking, and ragtime/blues for the previous ten years ... but those pioneer songs of jimmies were always deep in my heart, and every now and then one would rise to the top during a performance ..... I'd come out with it, no matter what style of audience, and the response was always positive. Anyway, when in Mountainview, I was lucky enough to get Mrs. Cleta on the phone, and told her how honored I'd be to meet Jimmie. She was very, very kind, and to make a long story short, I had a memorable visit with him that day before a show at the barn. We sang almost every song on that record ... I would ask him something about a particular lyric ...... and man, off we'd go, singing the whole darned thang. He and Mrs. Cleta invited me to sing on the show, later that night. I did, and you coulda cut my leg off without me knowin ... I was in heaven. He seemed such a here and now, strongly positive soul. This occurred about two years before he moved on, he was ninety, I believe ...... and still sharp and singing. I've played in Shad and Molly Hellers vaudeville show, back in '67 and '68, around Branson, the Piney Woods Opry, in Abita Springs, La., the new orleans jazz fest, and rubbed elbows with a couple of bigtimers, but the pinnacle of my music career occurred in a barn, singing pioneer songs with Mr.Jimmie Driftwood.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 07:53 PM

Back in the late '60's Jimmy brought a contingent of muscians from Mountain View to the university in Cape Girardeau, MO. I met him and Cleta at the Student Union and remarked that I had been listening to his music for 20 years, but the thing that first drew me to him was the sound of his old guitar. I asked if he was going to use it at the concert that evening. He answered in the affirmitave and looking around said, " There it is, over there, leaning against that chair. Go give it a try." I did just that! Later, in the very informal concert at the university, Jimmy taught me the lyrics to the "Butterbean Song". This meeting with Jimmy is one of my most treasured memories. Of course, he invited me down to Timbo (as he did just about everybody he met), and signed all the albums I bought. I never did make it down there, but I sure do have a warm spot in my heart for Jimmy, and those signed albums reside in a special place in my LP collection.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: GUEST,Dan the Tire Man aka fingerpik
Date: 09 May 04 - 06:18 PM

I wrote this piece in October of 1998. A friend of mine in Fort Smith, Arkansas, named Barney Hector, collects guitars. He had a black and white photograph of the torso of a man holding the "Grandpa Guitar". I asked him about it and he said he didn't know what it was. If you can believe that! I told him that I certainly knew exactly what it was and I wrote this for him to frame and hang beside the photo on the wall of his guitar museum which he has since closed.

I am not sure that the man in the photo holding the guitar is Jimmy since only his mid-torso is visable but the hands to not look like Jimmy's hands. It has occurred to me that it might be an old photo of Neal Morris. Anyway, I certainly am able to identify the instrument.

JIMMY'S GUITAR

"Pop, what's that thing you're foolin' with???"
"Son, this here's a gee-tar!"
"Pop, this thing I got right here is a gee-tar, and it don't look nothin' like that!"
"Son, this here's a HOMEMADE gee-tar!"

And that's how I met Jimmy Driftwood. I didn't know on that September morning over thirty years ago, that this old man was a three time Grammy winner, former member of the Grand Ol' Opry, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the writer of such songs as "Tennessee Stud", "Long Chain On", and the "Battle of New Orleans". He told me he was a teacher, and in retrospect, "Teacher" probably says it all.

What riveted my attention that morning was the guitar. Almost 150 years ago Jimmy's Granddaddy whittled the box out of HIS daddy's old bedstead and used a fence rail for a neck! The result was a primitive instrument that produced sounds as sweet as a thrush in a thicket on the banks of the Sylamore, or as loud and raucous as a gang of crows on an Ozark Mountain November morning. Whoever could imagine that a "piece of wood and steel" crafted by some Hillbilly around the time of the Civil War would one day produce hit records.

Jimmy checked out of this hotel called Earth and moved into his Eternal Home on July 12, 1998 at the age of 91. It's no tragedy when a man dies at the end of his life. Jimmy was a fortunate man and through his music was able to overcome anything life tossed at him. He lived well and died well and left a great legacy. He bequeathed his guitar and archives to the University of Central Arkansas at Conway where he received his teaching degree many years ago. Soon the public will be able to see his life, his instruments, and over 6,000 songs that he wrote: The history of the Teacher…..a true "Hero of the Ozarks".

c. 10-27-98 by Daniel W. Merry III (fingerpik)   [e-mail]

God Bless Jimmy Driftwood!

www.jimmydriftwoodlegacyproject.com.....check it out

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: JimmyDriftwoodMan
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 09:22 AM

The Tire Man has a wonderful song about Jimmy, "Hero of the Ozarks," on one of his CDs, plus he has contributed the recording to The Jimmy Driftwood Legacy Project for their "The Jimmy Driftwood Songs Sampler" CD, available at www.JimmyDriftwoodLegacyProject.com.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: JimmyDriftwoodMan
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 09:27 AM

Jimmy's songs are in two books from www.JimmyDriftwoodLegacyProject.com