Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 09:29 AM

Two more titles from a slightly fuller version of that article in a Michigan paper:

Jinney are You There?
Step Light, Ladies.

The fiddlers' contest happened in Paris, Mo. All the titles given appeared in Missouri newspaper accounts of local old-time fiddlers' contests.

Between 1920 and 1950 Vance Randolph collected some 500 tune titles in the Ozarks - most of them unfamiliar, some of them probably personal titles and some just jokes.

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 12:24 AM

Ah well, it's merely a matter of opinion. You may be right.

The source is The Philadelphia Ledger. Curious, I asked google how many Philadelphias there are. Answers ranged from 5 to 24. Who'd a thunk it?

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 03:13 PM

I don't see anything fake about the dialect. The grammar, vocabulary, and phonology all seem real to me. I'll bet a half million people in these-here parts would either say it themselves or count it perfectly believable.

If there's a problem, I think it's the writer's self-conscious use of iambic pentameter. But personally I love it.

I also love the snakin', hoggin', and foxin', even if I don't know either what they mean or if the anonymous journalist just made 'em up. In fact, I hope he did.

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 12:48 PM

I'm pretty sure I've heard people say "Boy howdy", so it's not just on the media.

I've found the music for Bell Cow and Belled Cow on abcnotation.com The two tunes are entirely different. I can't find "Sally Goodin and her Crippled Chickens."

"Sally Goodin" is a famous fiddle tune.

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 12:35 PM

Meself, I'd derive "Boy, howdy!" from "Boy, how d'ye...['explain that' or something similar].

Or it could just be "Boy!" plus "Howdy!"

Oxford is silent, but as an impersonal exclamation, "Boy, howdy!" goes back at least 100 years.

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 12:31 PM

"with a fiddlin' man a-leanin' on the bow?"

That dialect is so obviously fake that it's embarrassing.

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 12:24 PM

Other fiddle tunes mentioned in Missouri contests during the '20s:

Fox Hound
Eighth of January
Blue Mule
Hell Among the Yearlings
Downfall of Texas
Red Wing
Turkey in the Straw
Chicken Reel
Coming Through the Rye
Dill Pickles
Irish Washwoman [sic]
Walk Along (John)
Long John
N----r Overboard
Fort Smith
Mississippi Sawyer
The Downfall of Paris
Arkansas Traveler
Jack of Diamonds
The Lost Girl in Pine Wood
Stony Point
Over the Waves
Rabbit in the Briar Patch
Pop Goes the Weasel
Waggoner
Cackling Hen
Georgia Camp Meetin'
Cottage Hornpipe
Devil's Hornpipe
Gray Eagle
Soldier's Joy
Mocking Bird
Whistling Rufus
Bringing Home the Bacon
Dry and Dusty
Blue Heaven
Nellie Grey
Cattle in the Cane Breaks [sic]
Buffalo Gals
Little Brown Jug
Turnpike Band [sic]
Durango [sic] Hornpipe
Waltz in C
Barney Leave the Girls Alone
Pensacola
Drunken Hiccoughs
Give the Fiddler a Dram
Billy in the Low Ground
Mulberry Cap [sic]
Spencer's Favorite
Runaway Girl
Sliding Jim
Billy Doyle
Highland Fling Schottische
Shamus O'Brien
Five Miles Out of Town
Chicken Pie
The Gal I Left Behind Me
Marching Through Georgia
Dreamy Moon Waltz
Ozark Tune
Rippling Waves Waltz
Elite Schottische
Primary [sic] Girl
Waltz in A
Waltz in G
Old Dan Tucker
Whipping the Devil Around a Stump
Two O'Clock in the Morning
Soap Suds Over the Fence
Old Mother Flannigan
I Want to Go to Heaven, Uncle Joe
Jake's Favorite
Newmarket
Rock on the Corner
Over the Line
Shake It
Old Lady Blair
Jenny Lind Polka
Next Morning After a Long Night
The Rocky Road to Georgia
Hell on [the] Wabash
Coon Dog
Money Musk
Durang's Hornpipe
The Cluckin' Hen
The Old Wagoner
Forked Deer
Run, N----r, Run
Grandfather's Favorite Clog
The Good Old Wintertime
The Bob-Tailed Dog
The Darkey's Hoedown
Fisher's Hornpipe
Mountain Hornpipe
Walk Hazel [sic]out
Walk Along Lize, Take Your Feet Out of the Sand
Gilderoy
Dan Jones
The Dead N----r
Puncheon Floor
Sail Away Ladies
Shortenin' Bread
The Old Texas Wagoner
Sherlock Harris
Fry a Little Meat and Make a Little Gravy
Ricket's Hornpipe [sic]
Rocky Road to Texas
Muddy Road to Nashville
Kitty Puss
Gwine Down the River

(How many popular titles don't appear?

Subject: RE: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: meself
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 11:44 AM

I wonder if "Boy! how about ... " was a popular verbal construction that morphed into that (regional?) expression, "Boy howdy!", that pops up from time to time in American media?

Subject: Fiddlin' in Missouri, 1923
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 11:17 AM

The Denver Post (June 20, 1923) reports (via the Philadelphia Ledger) on an old fiddlers' contest in Missouri:


“Music? Boy! how about ‘The Bell Cow,’ with a fiddlin' man a-leanin' on the bow? How about it as he snakes and hogs and foxes that melody while the fiddle fans chant?

Drive up the bell cow, ketch her by the tail,
Hold her by the horn, while I milk her in the pail ...

Went out to milk, but didn't know how,
Milked a goat instead of a cow.

"There was that other tune beloved of hill fiddlers and plantation melody hounds, ‘Sally Goodin and Her Crippled Chickens.’ The fiddler chants as he waves his bow:

Had piece a-pie, had piece a-puddin',
Gave it all away to Little Sally Goodin.

"And ‘Leather Breeches,’ with the crowd patting and moaning and swinging in time:

Leather britches, leath-er-r britches,
Mammy cut 'em out and Daddy sewed the stitches.

"Of course, somebody played ‘Cotton-eye Joe.’ Wouldn't 'a' been a real fiddlin' contest without it:

Biggest fool I ever saw came from the state of Arkansas.
Wore his shirt on over his coat. Buckled his breeches around his throat.

Where did you come from, where do you go?
Where did you come from, Cotton-eye Joe?

"And ‘Lost Indian?’ You could see that poor savage wandering through the woods as that Missourian teased the catgut. It was lonesome. The woods were dark. Poor Indian long way from wigwam. Fiddle wails and moans, ‘Whoooooo!’ and the small boy dives under the chairs.”