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Run Jimmie Run/Pateroller Song/ Run, *Johnny Run/ Run, Boy Run
Old-Time, Song & Breakdown
ARTIST: from Doc Watson and Tom Ashley.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1800s; printed in 1851 (Serenader's Song Book)
RECORDING INFO: Victor 40205 (78 RPM), Eck Robertson (Texas) {1929}. Dr. Humphrey Bate & His Possum Hunters, (Brunswick 275, 1928)
Fiddlin' John Carson, (OKeh 40230, 1924)
Sid Harkreader & Grady Moore, (Paramount 3054, 1927)
Uncle Dave Macon, (Vocalion 15032, 1925)
Mose "Clear Rock" Platt, (AFS 196 A1, 1933; on LC04)
Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, (Columbia 15158-D, 1927)
Clint Howard, Gaither Carlton, Fred Price & Doc Watson, "Run, Jimmie, Run" (on WatsonAshley01)
RELATED TUNES: Fire on the Mountain; Rattlesnake Bit the Baby
OTHER NAMES: *The original title, with the N word, is no longer acceptable, and has been replaced by variety of alterative titles. "Run, Smoke, Run," "Run, Boy, Run" "Pateroller Will Catch You" "Pateroller'll Catch You;" "Run Jimmie, Run (Watson)"
SOURCES: Ceolas; Folk Index; Pete Sutherland [Phillips]. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1), 1994; pg. 181. Tradition TLP 1007, Hobart Smith - "Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians" (1956). Kenny Baker [Brody]; Bruce Hutton [Kuntz]; Tommy Jackson [Phillips]. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 238. Kuntz (Ragged but Right), 1987; pg. 203-204. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1), 1994; pg. 204. Cassette C-7625, Wilson Douglas - "Back Porch Symphony." Folkways 2402, Bruce Hutton- "Old Time Music...It's All Around." County 750, Kenn.
NOTES: G Major. Standard. AABB. *The original title, with the "n" word, is no longer acceptable, and has been replaced by variety of alterative titles. There is documentary evidence that this was a popular song amongst African-Americans and should be considered an African-American folk song.
The song is reported to be about pre-Civil War times when plantation owners hired men to patrol for runaway slaves or slaves out after curfew without a pass. See also related tune "Rattlesnake Bit the Baby." The song has been dated by some to pre-Civil War times when patrols were formed in nearly every Southern county with a sizable slave population to ensure the slaves stayed on the plantation and did not "wander;" this was especially so after the scare of the slave insurrections of the 1820's and 1830's. Hutton says it goes back to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 when frontiersmen revolted against government regulation. [Kuntz]
The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. In the repertoire of the John Lusk Band, a black string band from Cumberland Plateau region of Ky./Tenn.
In Lomax we find the following explanation (quoted at several hands' remove):
"Just after the Nat Turner Insurrection in 1832 the Negroes were put under special restrictions to home quarters, and patrolmen appointed to keep them in, and if caught without a written pass from owner they were dealt with severely then and there; hence the injunction to 'Run, *Johnny, Run, the Patter-roller Git You' to the tune of 'Fire in the Mountain....'"
"Pateroller Song" from Watson:
Guitar intro
[lyrics not put on yet]
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