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Higher Up the Monkey Climbs
See also: “Seneca Square Dance” "Got A Little Home to Go To" "Shoot That Turkey Buzzard."
Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma.
ARTIST: Fiddlin' Bob Larkin.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: 1800s.
RECORDING INFO: Holt, Bob. Got a Little Home to Go To, Rounder 0432, CD, cut#18a . Rosenbaum, Art (Arthur). Five String Banjo, Kicking Mule KM 108, LP (1974), cut# 7. Got a Little Home to Go To (#2) Holt, Bob. Got a Little Home to Go To, Rounder 0432, CD, cut#18b
“Seneca Square Dance” From A Fiddler’s Companion: Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Arkansas, Missouri. G Major. Standard. AB (Johnson): ABB (Ford): AABB (Phillips, Songer). Johnson (1982/1988) notes that there is an old hymn set to this tune, but does not give specifics. The melody is known to Irish musicians as "John Hoban's Polka" and appears to be related to the tune "(What Shall We Do with a) Drunken Sailor" and perhaps the gospel song "Rock-a My Soul (in the Bosom of Abraham)." "Seneca Square Dance" appeared on the Challange label (a subsidiary of Sears and Roebuck) on a 78 RPM recording by one 'Fiddlin' Sam Long of the Ozarks' (1876-1931, who actually was from Oklahoma but won a big contest in Missouri, according to Charles Wolfe) and was reissued by County on an LP entitled "Echoes of the Ozarks" in the 1970's. Long recorded the tune via acoustic, not electronic methods in 1926, and despite the rather poor quality of the sound it sold well in the Mid-west and West. Gus Meade and W.L. McNeil researched Long and discovered he had been born in 1876 and died sometime in March 1931 (perhaps in Wichita, Kansas). He was the first Ozark fiddler to have been recorded.
The melody was featured in the score by Ry Cooder for the film The Long Riders. It seems that one of Cooder's associates, David Lindley, previously performed an ideosyncratic version when he played with folk-rock musician Jackson Browne. There was no name attached to it and it was called "David's Fiddle Tune" at the time.
The origin of the title is obscure. Jim Kimball, a musicologist from Genesco, NY, points out that many Seneca indians (part of the Iroquois nation) were relocated to Oklahoma after the War of 1812, and that there is still a large community of Seneca in the northeastern part of the state, not far from southwest Missouri. The tune may also be called after the town of Seneca, Missouri, in the southwestern part of the state (which may itself have taken its name from the Indian tribe). A distanced, somewhat odd although regularly phrased version appears in Pioneer Western Folk Tunes (1948) by champion Arizona fiddler Viola "Mom" Ruth, under the title "Get Away from the Federals" with "Fall of Paris" given as an alternate title.
Seneca Square Dance Recordings: Traditional Music in America, Folklore Associates, Bk (1940/1965), p122a; Bunkhouse Orchestra. Old-Time Cowboy Songs, Gibbs Smith, Cas, cut# 13; Chancellor, Jim "Texas Shorty". Texas Shorty and John Hartford. Old Sport, Small Dog A-Barking SD 494, Cas (1994), cut#A.03 (Georgia Boys); Holt, Bob. Got a Little Home to Go To, Rounder 0432, CD, cut# 9a (Flop Old Turkey Buzzard); Johnson, Vesta. Blue Flame, Marimac 9057, Cas (1994), cut#B.01 (Little Home to Go To); Long, Sam (Fiddlin' Sam). Echoes of the Ozarks, Vol. 3, County 520, LP (1970), cut# 13; Rosenbaum, Art (Arthur). Art of the Mountain Banjo, Kicking Mule KM 203, LP (1975), cut#1.01b; Stoneking, Fred. Saddle Old Spike. Fiddle Music From Missouri, Rounder 0381, CD (1996), cut#23 (No Little Home to Go To); West Orrtana String Band. Orrtana Home Companion, Revonah RS-932, LP (1978), cut#A.01; Williams Family. All in the Family, Arkansas Traditions 004, LP (1986), cut# 5;
Coon Dog Recordings: Related Tune - Angeline the Baker ; Seneca Square Dance; Alternate Title - Raccoon Tail ; Lynchburg Town; Cooper, Roger. Going Back to Old Kentucky, Rounder 0380, CD (1996), cut#22; Grant, Bill. Fiddle Book, Oak, Bk (1967), p127; Old Virginia Fiddlers. Old Time Fiddle, Patrick County, VA, County 201, LP (1977), cut# 4; Dickey, Lotus. Fiddle Tunes from Orange County, Indiana. Vol. 1, Marimac 9029, Cas (1992), cut# 1a (Greasy String);
Shoot the Turkey Buzzard: Chancey Family. Folk Visions & Voices. Traditional Music & Song in North Georgia, University of Georgia, Bk (1983), p168; Fulcher, Bobby. Old Five String, Heritage (Galax) 039, LP, cut# 13; Gaskin, Phyllis. Mountain Dulcimer - Galax Style, Heritage (Galax) 094C, Cas (1991), cut# 15; Hillbillies. Hillbillies, County 405, LP (197?), cut#A.04b; Jamieson, Stu;'s Boys. String Band Project, Elektra EKS 7292, LP, cut#A.04; Kidwell, Fiddlin' Van. Midnight Ride, Vetco LP 506, LP (1975), cut#B.07; Mainer's Mountaineers (J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers). Good Ole Mountain Music, King 666, LP (196?), cut# 9; Osborne, Uncle Charlie (Charlie N.). Relics and Treasures, June Appal JA 0049, LP (1985), cut# 6; Schwarz, Tracy and Eloise. Our Kind of Music, Old Homestead 90092, LP (1978), cut# 2; Sprung, Roger. Ragtime Bluegrass, Vol. 2, Folkways FA 2371, LP (1964), cut# 2; Walker, John V.. Devil's Box, Devil's Box DB, Ser (196?), 25/4, p21b;
OTHER NAMES: “Got a Little Home to Go To,” "John Hoban's Polka," "Seneca Square Dance," "Waiting for the Federals," “Old Raccoon,” “Running from the Federals,” “Old Coon Dog,” “Hell among the Yearlin's,” ”Raccoon's Tail,” “Coon Dog,” “Rock Along John to Kansas” “Heel Flies,” “Get Away from the Federals, or Fall of Paris” “Shoot the Turkey Buzzard,” “Higher Up the Monkey Climbs," "Saddle Old Spike,"
RELATED TO: “Dinah,” “Liza Jane”
SOURCES: Ceolas: A Fiddler’s Companion; Henry Reed Collection On-line; W.S. Collins (Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma) [Thede]. Collins, W. S.. Fiddle Book, Oak, Bk (1967), p 18. Another version of the words is "Goin Back to Arkansas to Eat Corn Bread and 'Possum Jaw," Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; pg. 18-19.
NOTES: G Major. GDAD. AABB. The tune has been recorded under this title by Missouri fiddlers Fred Stoneking of Springfield, and Bill Graves, of Phillipsburg. Kerry Blech reports Missouri fiddler Bob Holt knows of two distinct versions of the tune, one in D Major and one in AEAE tuning. Holt’s “Got a Little Home to Go To,” is related to the large " Shoot that Turkey Buzzard/ Seneca Square Dance/Davy Dugger " family of tunes. See also related tunes "Saddle Old Mike," "Saddle Old Spike" "Saddle Old Bob," and “Jones County.”
Another related group of titles are the “Get Away from the Federals,” or “Fall of Paris.” Known as "Running from the Federals," "Waiting for the Federals," Keep Away from the Federals," the tune appears as that title in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954.
Bob Holt of Ava, in southwestern Missouri, is well-known in midwestern old-time circles as a square-dance fiddler par excellence, with a fast, driving style that reflects influences ranging from other Ozark fiddlers to early old-time recordings, but that has also been molded by years of playing for dancers. One of Bob’s CD’s title tracks is Got a Little Home to Go To (second setting), which has an archaic, modal melody relatively uncommon in the Ozark fiddle repertoire.
Fiddler Henry Reed plays a similar tune called, "Greasy String," which is the title of versions scattered across southwestern Virginia and West Virginia. But under other titles the tune has turned up across an even wider swath of the country, from Virginia to Texas and Missouri. Some typical multiple versions are in Ford, Traditional Music of America, p. 122 "Seneca Square Dance," p. 62 "Old Raccoon," p. 7 "Running from the Federals," and p. 101 "Hell among the Yearlin's"; Adam, Old Time Fiddlers' Favorite Barn Dance Tunes #14, "Raccoon's Tail"; Thede, The Fiddle Book, p. 127 "Coon Dog" (or "Raccoon's Tail"), p. 136 "Heel Flies" (or "Rock Along John to Kansas"); Ruth, Pioneer Western Folk Tunes, p. 7 "Get Away from the Federals, or Fall of Paris"; "Shoot the Turkey Buzzard," played by J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers (King 819). It is but a small step to a yet wider circle of related tunes, such as the "Liza Jane" of Southern Piedmont, minstrel stage, and jazz band circulation, or another tune in Henry Reed's repertory, set in the key of A, that he called "Dinah." In short, the tune is cut of a cloth so common in the Upper South, and in musical domains touched by the influence of the Upper South, that it could be described as a paradigmatic Southern tune, appearing in so many related versions, allied forms, and modified guises that it almost defies genetic tracing.
Fiddler Clyde Davenport learned two related tunes from his father: "Davy Dugger," and "Shoot the Turkey Buzzard." Here’s some info about Clyde from Jeff Titon: Clyde Davenport, old-time fiddler and banjo player was born Oct. 21, 1921 and raised back in the mountains in the Blue Hole Hollow, near Mt. Pisgah on the Cumberland Plateau, not far from the Tennessee line, in south-central Kentucky.
Clyde had five brothers and three sisters. Three of his brothers played the fiddle. So did his father, Will Davenport, and his grandfather, Francis Marion Davenport. Will Davenport played banjo as well. I asked if any of his sisters or aunts played. Clyde said the only girl musician in the family was a double second cousin who played fiddle and banjo.
Two of the tunes Clyde learned from his father were "Davy Dugger," and "Shoot the Turkey Buzzard." Another was "Liza Jane." Many tunes in Clyde’s repertoire came from his father, but many others came from people he heard along the way, from radio, and records. Unless the tune was one his father played, Clyde seldom can identify the source.
Starting in his mid-teens, Clyde played for dances in the Mt. Pisgah region, traveling in the mountains to play at some person's home for a square dance every Saturday night. Often he went with one of his brothers and, because none of them played banjo, the job of banjo-playing fell to him.
"Davy Dugger" and "Shoot that Turkey Buzzard" are two tunes that Clyde Davenport learned from his father Will Davenport each has a simple two-part structure and is played in the key of G. If you listen closely you will hear pulsations on the offbeat. Clyde makes these accents by momentarily pressing harder on his bow. His technique is deliberate and skillful. He decides when to bow one string at a time and when to make chords by bowing two. The two songs are similar. Perhaps one came from the other, or both from a third tune, like "Seneca Square Dance."
Clyde Davenport: “Some people think "Shoot that Turkey Buzzard" and "Davy Dugger " are the same tune, just dressed out a little differently. Steve Green and I once asked Clyde if he thought they were the same tune. "See the difference?" Clyde replied. "Here's 'Turkey Buzzard," he said, and he played the low part. "Keep on with that," said Steve, while Clyde stopped and played the low part of "Davy Dugger." When he was through demonstrating the differences, Clyde said, "That's 'Davy Dugger.'" For Clyde, they're two different tunes.
HIGHER UP THE MONKEY CLIMBS- Fiddlin' Bob Larkin
The higher up the monkey climbs,
The higher up the monkey climbs,
The higher up the monkey climbs,
The greater he shows his…Yak yak yada daddy de da
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