Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?

Subject: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Kudzuman
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 09:22 PM

Someone I know recently saw that one particular old-time band spelled the well known fiddle tune "Dubuque" as "Debuque" and insists that this is the correct spelling. That is the only time I've seen the tune title spelled that way. Any consensus? Thanks in advance!

Kudzuman

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 09:54 PM

Dubuque, Iowa is Dubuque. Don't know about the fiddle tune. Sounds like Debunk to me.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 09:06 AM

MA FERGUSON. Old-Time, Breakdown. A version of "Duck River," and part of the larger "Dubuque" tune family. Moses Bonner, who recorded the tune in the 1920's, was a fiddler from Fort Worth, Texas, although he was born in Alabama. Victor 19669 (78 RPM), Moses J. Bonner (1925).

can be found here

more about Dubuque

Semms to me that Dubuque is right, could be muddled up with Debuque, Ill., or simply bad orthography = FSC (Failed Spelling Contest)

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 01:34 PM

...and then there's the short little song I sang for ten years out on the Mississippi River gigging on a steamboat:

Dubuque, Dubuque, you make me want to........shiver,
With your wide, wide streets and your Mississippi River,
I love you with my heart---I love you with my liver,
Dubuque----boom, boom--------by the river!!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 02:00 PM

Who insisted? The person you know? The old-time band? What was the band's source for the spelling? We they serious about the claim?

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 02:26 PM

If you look at google, there are a number of listings for "Debuque," Iowa- all mistaken. A common spelling error that makes some dubuquians laugh and others cry. Some merchants stick both in their internet adds.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 02:08 PM

Okay folks - you've told us how to spell it. Now can somebody explain how I should pronounce it?
Serious question - honest!
It is a tune I first heard about 20 years back on one of Bill Spence's (Fennigs All Stars) hammered dulcimer records. It is one I never got around to learning, but as I am teaching myself to play Old-time fiddle, it seems like one I ought to get to grips with. Which - of course - leaves me with the problem that if somebody asks the title of the tune, I can at this point only guess how locals would pronounce the name.
Can anybody put it down in non-expert phonetics - i.e. "sounds like" ....

And thanks to Wilfried Schaum for the link to The Fiddler's Companion website. It seems to be an absolute gem just for its cross-referencing of alternatiuve titles for tunes, plus the listing of related tunes. When we then add the number of them which are in ABC format so we can listen to them if we don't already know the tune.
I've got it bookmarked.
Quack!!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 02:54 PM

Geoff:

duh-BYUKE. Rhymes with "puke."

Best I can do.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:39 PM

tHANKS!1
qUACK!
gTd.
OH BUGGER THE CAPSLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 12:17 AM

Dubuque. Rhymes with "the Duke."

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:27 AM

The Duke?
That means I'll probably get confused and end up calling it John Wayne's reel :0)
Quack!!!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Origins: Dubuque or Debuque?
From: GUEST,Augie
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:09 PM

if you're from Chicago, then its DaBuque-as in DaBulls,DaBears...well, you get daIdea.