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Jones County
Traditional Old-Time, Breakdown. Mississippi.
ARTIST: Charles Long
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1939.
RECORDING INFO: Charles Long recorded the tune for the Library of Congress in 1939. Long, Charles. Great Big Yam Potatoes. Anglo-American Fiddle Music from Missi., Southern Culture AH002, LP (1985), cut# 40
OTHER NAMES: Down in Jones County;
RELATED TO: Saddle Old Spike; Seneca Square Dance; Coon Dog ; Got a Little Home to Go To;
SOURCES: Ceolas; Charles Long (Clarke County, Mississippi) [Rankin]. Rankin, 1985; Notes for "Great Big Yam Potatoes." Mississippi Department of Archives and History AH-002, Charles Long - "Great Big Yam Potatoes: Anglo-American Fiddle Music from Mississippi" (1985).
NOTES: A Major. AEAE. AB. Jones County is southwest of Clarke County, Mississippi, where Charles Long recorded the tune for the Library of Congress in 1939. Tom Rankin (1985) calls it a "locally constructed tune" built of familiar phrases with lyrics of local, not national, importance.
“Jones County” is related to “Saddle Old Spike/Saddle Old Kate” found in Missouri. The tunes are part of the larger "Seneca Square Dance" family of tunes.
SADDLE OLD SPIKE: is an old-time breakdown found in Missouri. The tune was recorded for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph from the playing of Ozark Mountian fiddlers in the early 1940's. Fred Stoneking says: "Back in the 'twenties, there was a guy by the name of Lum Varner and he had a younger brother called Jim. When Lum was about twenty years old, he made up this tune and called it 'Saddle Old Kate.' But those brothers had a little fall-out on account of being jealous of each other's fiddling ability. So they parted company. The problem was that Jim loved that tune too. He was so mad at his bother that he called the tune after his own horse which was Spike. A friend of mine named Joe knew Jim and that's how it came down to me as 'Saddle Old Spike.'" See related "Little Home To Go To." Rounder CD 0381, Fred Stoneking - "Saddle Old Spike: Fiddle Music from Missouri." Wallace, Jesse. Traditional Fiddle Music of the Ozarks. Volume 1, Rounder 0435, CD (1999), cut#37
LITTLE HOME TO GO TO: known as "John Hoban's Polka," "Seneca Square Dance," "Waiting for the Federals," ia another related old-time breakdown from the mid-west. 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. Bob Holt of Ava, in southwestern Missouri, is well-known in mid-western 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.
See also related tunes "Saddle Old Mike," "Saddle Old Spike" and "Saddle Old Bob." Found by W.S. Collins (Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma) in Thede. 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. Kicking Mule, Art Rosenbaum. 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
SENECA SQUARE DANCE: Also known as "Georgia Boys," "Got a Little Home to Go To," "Higher Up the Monkey Climbs," "John Hoban's Polka," "Running from the Ferderals," "Waiting for the Federals." 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.
"Seneca Square Dance" has been, and continues to be, a popular tune among regional fiddlers. Fiddlin' Bob Larkin recorded a version with words called "The Higher Up the Monkey Climbs." Alton Jones of Theodosia calls it "Seneca War Dance" and Cliff Bryan of West Plains calls it "Got No Little Home to Go to." It is infrequently called "Echoes of the Ozarks," the name of a different tune (by Clyde Davenport, for one).
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.
Here are the lyrics to Jones County by fiddler Charles Long:
Gone a whole week to see my love
Down in Jones County,
Gone a whole week to see my love
Down in Jones County.
Fair you will and goodbye too,
Down in Jones County;
Fair you well and goodbye too,
Down in Jones County.
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