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Molly Put the Kettle On
Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, Missouri.
ARTIST: Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers;
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes;
DATE: Mid 1800’s in US;
RECORDING INFO: Leake County Revelers (Miss.). Columbia 15746 (78 RPM), Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers (N. Ga.). County 506, The Skillet Lickers- "Old Time Tunes." County 529, Leake County Revelers- "Traditional Fiddle Music of Mississippi, Vol. 2." Folkways FA 2399, New Lost City Ramblers - "Vol. 4." Global Village C217, (Black fiddler and banjo player) Joe and Odell Thompson - "Old Time Music From the North Carolina Piedmont." Marimac AHS #3.
RELATED TO: “O Du Lieber Augustin,” “Old Molly Hare”
OTHER NAMES: Jinny Put the Kettle On; Polly Put the Kettle On; Sally Put the Kettle On; Jenny's Bawbie; Jenny's Baby-Reel;
SOURCES: The Skillet Lickers (north Georgia) [Brody]; Emmet Lundy (Va.) and Joe Politte (Mo.) [Phillips].Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 194. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 1, 1994; pg. 154. Columbia 15380 (78 RPM), Glen Smith - "Say Old Man" (1990. Learned from Creed Smith). Marimac 9038, Dan Gellert & Brad Leftwich - "A Moment in Time" (may be version #4). Rounder 0058, Haywood Blevins (southwestern Va.) - "Old Originals, Vol. II" (1978). Victor 21518, Ernest Stoneman - "Serenade in the Mountains."
From fiddler Henry Reed’s Web-site: "Jenny Put the Kettle On" is an old favorite in the British Isles and America. American sets are usually entitled "Molly (or Polly) Put the Kettle On." An eighteenth-century Scottish version appears in Johnson, Scots Musical Museum (1853 edition), vol. 3, 512 (#496), entitled "Jenny's Bawbie." Similar sets are Davie's Caledonian Repository, p. 83; Stewart-Robertson, Athole Collection, p. 88; One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, p. 19 "Jenny's Baby-Reel." American sets include Gentleman's Amusement . . . for the Clarionet (ca. 1825), No. 3, p. 5 "Polly put the kettle on"; Ford, Traditional Music of America, p. 85 "Polly, Put the Kettle On"; O'Neill's Music of Ireland #1363 "Molly Put the Kettle On."
NOTES: “Molly/Polly/Jinny Put the Kettle On” is a breakdown that originated in England and has been played as a fiddle tune and a song by country music favorites Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers and Uncle Dave Macon. The tune has been in the black and white fiddling traditions since the mid to late 1800’s.
Here's a short African-American version from "The Southern workman and Hampton school record, Volume 28 By Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute 1899":
["Jinny put de kettle on" was a play not to test one's ability in the dance, but to see how quickly a fellow could kiss a girl. All would form a ring, and "Jinny," either male or female, would be placed in the middle. All would trot rapidly around singing,
"Jinny put de kettle on, kettle on, kettle on,
Jinny put the kettle on,
Le's take tea,
Slice your bread and butter, fry it on the griddle,
Choose your partner 'round the ring, kiss her on the way."
The fellow who was not quick enough to " kiss her on the way," missed the coveted prize.]
The melody of this reel (4/4 time) is also associated with the German waltz tune, “O Du Lieber Augustin” from which the popular songs, “Did You Ever See a Lassie?” and "The More We Are Together" have sprung.
“The melody [of "O Du Lieber Augustin"] is frequently associated with the song < Kettle Put (Polly)>, the opening notes of early printings of which are identical with those of O Du Lieber Augustin. Chappell, p. 795, says that Polly was arranged for piano by Dale about 1794, but no publication by Dale has been located before ca. 1809-1810 under the title Molly Put the Kettle On or Jenny Baubie; JF. Jenny's Baubie or Jenny Put the Kettle On was published by McDonnell, Dublin, ca. 1790-1810, and Molly Put the Kettle On was published by Paff, New York City, 1803-7--both at JF. The melody is also used in connection with Did You Ever See a Lassie? the earliest known printing of which is in Jessie H. Bancroft, Games for the Playground, Home, School anf Gymnasium (New York, N.Y., 1909), p. 261, published Dec. 8, 1909; LC. --From James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, 4th ed. (Dover, 1995, pp. 400-401).
NOTES ON “POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON/ JENNY'S BAWBEE”: "Chappell in Popular Music of the Olden Time says 'The well-known country dance and nursery song, Polly Put the Kettle On, was transformed into a Scotch tune for Johnson's Scots Musical Museum in 1797. This was about three years after Polly had become very popular with the young ladies by means of Dale's variations for the pianoforte.' It was hardly, however, a question of transformation. The tune had long been known as Jenny's Bawbee, which was mentioned by Herd in 1776, and given by Joshua Campbell in 1778. Possibly the words were old English. The rhyming of tea with away is as in Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1714), though it still survives in some country districts. Polly was a common pet-form of Mary, as was Sukey of Susan, in middle-class families in the mid-eighteenth century. Grip, the raven in Barnaby Rudge, when very much exited cried, 'Hurray! Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea; Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! ' Around 1870 'Polly put the kettle on and we'll all have tea' was a much repeated catchphrase.
The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes (Iona and Peter Opie, 1951) has the following entry:
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.
Sukey take it off again,
Sukey take it off again,
Sukey take it off again,
They've all gone away.
Old Nurse's Book, Charles Bennett, 1858:
Sukey take it off again,
It will all boil away.
With additional verse
Blow the fire and make the toast
Put the muffins down to roast,
Blow the fire and make the toast
We'll all have tea.
Sheffield Glossary, S.O. Addy, 1888:
Come Betty, set the kettle on,
Let's have a cup of tay;
Sukey take it off again,
We'll have no more today."
JENNY'S BAWBEE (BABY) Scottish, English; Reel. England, Northumberland. D Major. Standard. AB (Cole, Honeyman): AAB (Athole, Gow): AABB (Kerr): AABB' (Glen, Skye). The antiquarian William Chappell claimed the melody as English in origin, though he accuses his countryman, Stephen Clarke (c. 1797) of making changes in the tune formerly called "Polly Put the Kettle On" and re-titling it to fit the Scottish taste for the Scots Musical Museum (1797). "Polly Put the Kettle On" had three years previously "become very popular with young ladies, by means of Dale's Variations for the Pianoforte." The collector John Glen (1891), however, in espousing Scottish origins for the tune, finds the first Scottish printing in Joshua Campbell's 1778 collection (pg. 79), and subsequently in Scots publications dating 1778 and 1788, which predate the Museum. "Mr. Chappell further had the hardihood to say that 'the words of 'Jenny's Bawbee' were adapted to (Polly Put the Kettle On); although as they begin, 'A' athat e'er my Jenny had, my Jenny had, my Jenny had,' they were evidently intended for the tine of 'Sike a wife as Willy had, as Willy had, as Willy had,'" (Glen, 1891). In a work entitled Introduction to the Ballads and Songs of Ayrshire (1846) "Jenny's Bawbee" is attributed to John Riddell of Ayr (1718-1795), who published one of the first collections of Scottish music around 1766, although as Kidson points out there is no corroborating evidence to sustain the claim. The title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes ("The Northern Minstrel's Budget"), which he published c. 1800, and was one of the "missing tunes" of William Vickers' 1770 Northumbrian dance tune manuscript. Cole (1001 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; pg. 19 (appears as "Jenny's Baby"). Glen (The Glen Collection of Scottish Dance Music), Vol. 1, 1891; pg. 5. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 1, 1799; pg. 36. Honeyman (Strathspey, Reel and Hornpipe Tutor), 1898; pg. 34. Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 1; Set 2, No. 4, pg. 4. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; pg. 72. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; pg. 88.
POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [1]. AKA and see "Jenny's Bawbee." Irish, English; Reel. A Dorian (Roche): D Major (Hardings): D Major {'A' and 'B' parts} & A Dorian {'C' and 'D' parts} (Kennedy, Raven). Standard. AABB'CCDD' (Kennedy, Raven): AABB (Hardings): AAB (Roche). The collector John Glen (1891) finds an early printing of the tune in Dale's "Variations for the Pianoforte" (1794) and remarked it was became at that time "very popular with young ladies." O'Neill (1913) relates that a London Uilleann piper, one Thomas Garoghan, enthused his audiences by the trick of uttering intelligibly on the chanter "Polly put the kettle on." Hardings All Round Collection, 1905; No. 10, pg. 4. Kennedy (Fiddlers Tune Book), Vol. 1, 1951; No. 51, pg. 25. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; pg. 162. Roche Collection, 1982, Vol. 1; No. 196, pg. 75.
NOTES ON “OTHER” VERSIONS: JENNY/ JINNY PUT THE KETTLE ON Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Missouri. D Major. Standard. AABB. A version of "Molly Put the Kettle On." The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. That the tune was also in African-American tradition was attested to by Ashe County, North Carolina, musician Hobart Smith (b. 1897), who said: "The first fiddle I ever heard in my life was when I was a kid. There was an old colored man who was raised up in slave times. His name was Jim Spenser. He played 'Jinny, Put the Kettle On' and all those old tunes like that. And he would come up to our house and he'd play..." (quoted in Cecilia Conway's African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia, 1995). See also Bayard's note for "Bonaparte Crossing the Alps." Source for notated version: Frank Reed (Randolph County, Missouri) [Christeson]. Christeson (Old Time Fiddlers Repertory, Vol. 2), 1984; No. 66, pg. 46.
MOLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [1]. AKA- "Jenny Put the Kettle On," "Polly Put the Kettle On." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, Missouri. D Major (Brody, Phillips): A Dorian (O'Neill). Standard. ABB. African-American fiddler Joe Thompson plays the piece in FCGD tuning. Sources for notated versions: The Skillet Lickers (north Georgia) [Brody]; Emmet Lundy (Va.) and Joe Politte (Mo.) [Phillips]. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 194. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), Vol. 1, 1994; pg. 154. Columbia 15380 (78 RPM), Leake County Revelers (Miss.). Columbia 15746 (78 RPM), Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers (N. Ga.). County 506, The Skillet Lickers- "Old Time Tunes." County 529, Leake County Revelers- "Traditional Fiddle Music of Mississippi, Vol. 2." Folkways FA 2399, New Lost City Ramblers - "Vol. 4." Global Village C217, (Black fiddler and banjo player) Joe and Odell Thompson - "Old Time Music From the North Carolina Piedmont." Marimac AHS #3, Glen Smith - "Say Old Man" (1990. Learned from Creed Smith). Marimac 9038, Dan Gellert & Brad Leftwich - "A Moment in Time" (may be version #4). Rounder 0058, Haywood Blevins (southwestern Va.) - "Old Originals, Vol. II" (1978). Victor 21518, Ernest Stoneman - "Serenade in the Mountains."
MOLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [2]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, West Virginia (probably) Not similar to the "Polly/Molly Put the Kettle On" versions of the tune, but seems related to the tune "Yew Piney Mountain." Folkways 31062, Ship in the Clouds- "Old Time Instrumental Music" (1978. Learned from Vermont fiddler Pete Sutherland).
MOLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [3] (A Maire Cuir Sios An Coire). AKA and see "Jenny's Bawbee." Irish, Reel. A Dorian/G Major. Standard. AB (O'Neill/1850 & 1001): AA'BB' (O'Neill/Krassen). The melody was used for a well-known country dance and nursery song in the 18th century; the rhyme is still found in Mother Goose collections. O'Neill (1850), 1903/1979; No. 1363, pg. 254. O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; pg. 126. O'Neill (1001 Gems), 1907/1986; No. 616, pg. 112.
MOLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [4]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, North Carolina. No relation to "Molly Put.." [1]. This version is from North Carolina fiddler Manco Sneed via contemporary old-time master Brad Leftwich. Sneed, Osey Helton and Marcus Martin, all western North Carolina fiddlers who had their heyday in the early 20th century, learned the tune from Jamed Dedrick Harris, of Flag Pond, Tennessee (and who lived for some time in North Carolina), who had been the fiddler who accompanied Governor Bob Tylor in his whistle-stop campaign called the "War of the Roses" (Hartford). Harris was born in 1859, made fiddles and travelled, according to John Hartford. Flying Fish FF-055, Red Clay Ramblers- "Merchant's Lunch" (1977. Learned from Manco Sneed). Rounder 0392, John Hartford - "Wild Hog in the Red Brush (and a Bunch of Others You Might Not Have Heard") {1996. Learned from fiddler Brad Leftwich}. Shanachie Records 6040, Gerry Milnes & Lorraine Lee Hammond - "Hell Up Coal Holler" (1999).
OLD VIRGINIA REEL [4]. Old-Time, Breakdown. A variant of "Polly Put the Kettle On." Recorded by John Walker's Corbin Rattlers. Rounder 0392, John Hartford - "Wild Hog in the Red Brush (and a Bunch of Others You Might Not Have Heard") {1996. Learned from a recording of Amyx Stamper, Harold Stamper's father}.
MOLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [5]. Shetlands, Shetlands Reel. May be the same as version #2. From the island of Papa Stour, Shetlands.
POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [2]. AKA and see "Molly Put the Kettle On," "Granny Will Your Dog Bite?" Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; east Tennessee, western N.C., north Ga. G Major (with flat 7th) {Ford}: D Major {Spandaro}. Standard. AABB. Identified as a common East Tennessee tune. Tune played by Wiley Harper (Monroe, Ga.) in a 1913 Atlanta, Ga. fiddlers' contest.
Polly, put the kettle on and slice the bread and butter fine.
Slice enough for eight or nine, we'll all have tea. (Ford).
Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 85 (Ford also prints the words to "Molly Put the Kettle On" on page 399). Spandaro (10 Cents a Dance), 1980; pg. 4. In the repertoire of western N.C. fiddler Osey Helton. Biograph 6008, Ebenezer - "Fox Hollow String Band Festival." Folkways FTS 31062, "Ship in the Clouds: Old Time Instrumental Music" (1978). Mountain 310, Tommy Jarrell - "Joke on the Puppy" (1976. Learned from Charlie Lowe).
SALLY PUT THE KETTLE ON. AKA and see "Molly/Polly Put the Kettle On." Old-Time. USA; Arkansas, central Alabama. The title appears in a list of "forgotten" tunes compiled by W.E.G. of Verbena, Alabama, as reported in the "Union Banner" of September 29, 1921. It also appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musiocologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954.
Here’s the lyrics to “Molly Put The Kettle On” from The Skillet Lickers:
Molly put the kettle on, Jenny ring the dinner horn
Molly put the kettle on and we'll all have tea
Swing Sal, swing Sue
Swing that gal with the run down shoe
Swing Ma, swing Pa
Swing that gal from Arkansas
Take her to the back and promenade all
Pull that calico from the wall
Molly put the kettle on, Jenny blow the dinner horn
Molly put the kettle on and we'll all take tea
Swing Sal, swing Sue
Swing that gal with the run down shoe
Molly put the kettle on, Jenny blow the dinner horn
Molly put the kettle on and we'll all take tea
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