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Sleepy Eyed John
Bluegrass Breakdown and Song;
ARTIST: Joe Bethancourt, From his grandpa.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: Early 1950’s Tex Atchison with his band Ole Rasmussen and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
RECORDING INFO: Sleepy Eyed John Alden, Ray. Old Time Friends, Marimac 9009, Cas (1987), trk# 15; Greenbriar Boys. Ragged But Right, Vanguard VSD 79159, LP (1974), trk# 1; Greenbriar Boys. Newport Folk Festival 1964. Evening Concerts, Vol. 2, Vanguard VSD 79185, LP (1965), trk# B.07; Ole Rasmussen ( Sleepy Eyed John); Johnny Horton ( Sleepy Eyed John); "Sleepy-Eyed John" Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum (The Oak & The Laurel , Rounder 0340); Jim & Jesse McReynolds: Jim & Jesse Story: 24 Greatest Hits CD;
RECORDING INFO: Get Up John - Monroe, Bill Wakefield, Frank. Frank Wakefield with Country Cooking, Rounder 0007, LP (1972), trk# A.01; Dr. Corn's Bluegrass Remedy. It'll Tickle Your Innards, Grassroots GR 004, LP (1977), trk# A.08; Monroe, Bill; and Doc Watson. Bill and Doc, Sonyatone FEN-210, LP (197?), trk# 1; Sidesaddle. Daylight Train, Turquoise TR 5080, Cas (1991), trk# 7;
RELATED TO: Get Up John; Casey Jones; melody of “Sandy River Belle"
OTHER NAMES:
SOURCES: Ceolas; Mudcat DT; Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide; Keith Lawrence’s “Tex Atchison Chose Music over the Mines”
NOTES: Sleepy-eyed is an adjective meaning ready to fall asleep; "beginning to feel sleepy"; "a sleepy-eyed child with drooping eyelids"; or "sleepyheaded students." "Sleepy-Eyed John" is briefly listing in Ceolas as a fiddle tune with lyrics; ADad tuning.
The Folk Index lists “Get Up John” recorded by Bill Monroe as a similar version of "Sleepy-Eyed John." Monroe’s recording is an instrumental (mandolin solo) and has also been recorded by Skaggs and others. On Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum "Sleepy-Eyed John” (The Oak & The Laurel , Rounder 0340), songwriting credit is given Tex Atchison. Atchison, a left-handed fiddler, recorded "Sleepy-Eyed John" in the early 1950’s with his band Ole Rasmussen and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
“Atchison also kept his hand in at Western swing, joining fellow fiddler Rocky Stone, and many other fine musicians in Ole Rasmussen and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The leader of the group doesn't sound like a Texan, but it didn't matter. He was simply a businessman who kept the band together, proving with his hiring of Atchison that he knew talent when he heard it. The group recorded more than two dozen sides during a two year stint at Capitol which began in 1950. Classics such as "Sleepy-Eyed John" and a version of the jazz toast "C Jam Blues" reveal Atchison's graceful way with the Western swing style.” Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
Johnny Horton’s version (Sleepy Eyed John 1960) probably came from Atchison who played with Horton shortly after his stint with Capitol.
In Keith Lawrence’s article (see complete article after lyrics) “Tex Atchison Chose Music over the Mines:” Atchison was born near Rosine on Feb. 5, 1912. Five months earlier, William Smith "Bill" Monroe had been born on the farm next door. The boys went to school together. But the musical paths they followed took them in different directions. Monroe became known as "the father of bluegrass music." Atchison found his fame in western swing.
It’s quite likely that both Atchison and Monroe learned the same tune probably from the same source. Sleepy Eyed John seems to be a re-write of Casey Jones (Copyright 1909 Words, T. Lawrence Seibert. Music, Eddie Newton)
CASEY JONES
(Words, T. Lawrence Seibert. Music, Eddie Newton. Copyright 1909.)
Come, all you rounders, if you want to hear
A story about a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder's name.
On a six-eight wheeler, boys, he won his fame.
The caller called Casey at a half past four,
Kissed his wife at the station door,
Mounted to the cabin with his orders in his hand,
And he took his farewell trip to that Promised Land.
CHORUS: Casey Jones! mounted to the cabin.
Casey Jones! with his orders in his hand.
Casey Jones! mounted to the cabin
And he took his farewell trip to that Promised Land.
The similarity is too great for coincidence. Compare to SLEEPY EYED JOHN:
CHORUS: Sleepy Eyed John, better get your britches on
Sleepy Eyed John, better tie your shoes
Sleepy Eyed John, better get your britches on
Try to get to heaven 'fore the devil gets you.
Now compare to GET UP JOHN:
Emmy Lou Harris (credited to Bill Monroe)
CHORUS: John--- you've been chosen
John--- go unafraid
John--- I'll go with you
John The Baptist, this is the day.
Emmy Lou Harris’ “Get Up John” (also known as “John The Baptist”) is credited to Bill Monroe. There is a similarity in the chorus to Sleepy Eyed John. Since Monroe’s version is an instrumental where the lyrics to Get Up John originated is still a mystery. I can only assume Monroe did or helped write a version of “Get Up John” with lyrics.
Since the song, Sleepy Eyed John, does not appear in The Traditional Ballad Index or Meade, it is obviously a modern composition from the 1940/1950 era. It was first recorded in 1950’s by Tex Atchison with his band Ole Rasmussen and the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Capitol.
Here are the lyrics to Sleepy Eyed John from Joe Bethancourt:
SLEEPY EYED JOHN (Joe Bethancourt, From his grandpa:)
(Chorus) Sleepy eyed John, better get cher britches on
Sleepy eyed John, better tie your shoes
Sleepy eyed John, better get cher britches on
Sleepy eyed John, no time to lose
Sleepy eyed John bought a flop-ear mule
Everybody called him a danged old fool
Mule got cranky and the mule let go
Kicked him clear over into Mexico!
Sleepy eyed John ain't nobody's fool
Do the double-shuffle with a wooden rule
Do the double-shuffle and rosin up the bow
Play a little tune wherever I go
By Keith Lawrence from Messenger-Inquirer; Ohio County 09/21/04 “Tex Atchison Chose Music over the Mines”:
Country music historian Charles K. Wolfe calls him, "arguably the best left-handed fiddler in the history of country music." But back home in Ohio County, the memory of Shelby David "Tex" Atchison is fading fast. Atchison was born near Rosine on Feb. 5, 1912. Five months earlier, William Smith "Bill" Monroe had been born on the farm next door. The boys went to school together. But the musical paths they followed took them in different directions. Monroe became known as "the father of bluegrass music." Atchison found his fame in western swing. In 1920, when Atchison first picked up his father's fiddle, no one in his family expected him to be able to play it. He was left-handed. And the fiddle was built for a right-handed musician. But Atchison, youngest of 10 children, loved the sounds the fiddle made. And he was determined to make it sing for him like it did his father. "My father was considered one of the best fiddlers around," Atchison recalled in a 1980 interview. "He never played for money, but he could have been a pro in later days when country music became more commercial." When he was 14, Atchison's family moved to McHenry, where he went to work in the mines. But his father's fiddle was about to change his life. Forrest "Boots" Faught, a fellow miner and band leader, heard Atchison playing his fiddle one day and offered him a job with Faught's Entertainers, one of the top bands in the area in the 1920s -- a band that combined country music and Dixieland.
Arnold Shultz, the black guitarist who was one of Monroe's inspirations, was also a member of the band. Barely in his teens, Atchison found himself digging coal by day and playing fiddle, saxophone and clarinet by night in coal-field dancehalls. Soon, he discovered that music made more sense than mining. "I think the first show I played, I got $3," Atchison said. "I was making $2.56 a day in the mines." In 1932, he left the mines forever. A few weeks later, three men from southern Kentucky -- Jack Taylor, Charles "Chick" Hurt and Floyd "Salty" Holmes -- were looking for a fiddler for a band they were putting together. They offered the slot to Taylor's cousin. He wasn't interested. But he told them about seeing Atchison at the Shady Rest The Kentucky Ramblers came to McHenry with an offer for Atchison. And they didn't have to ask twice. He picked up his fiddle and hit the road. The Ramblers headed north to radio station WOC in Davenport, Iowa, and its sister station, WHO, in Des Moines. The stations broadcast on 50,000 watts to a wide section of the Midwest. And the Ramblers were a hit.
"We had a program every night from 6 to 6:30," Atchison said. "There was a man breaking in as a sports announcer there who did a five-minute sports show at 6:10. His name was (Ronald) 'Dutch' Reagan."
It was in Iowa that Shelby Atchison disappeared and Tex was born. "A man named Oklahoma Jack gave me the name," he said. "He said Shelby wasn't commercial enough." After five months in Iowa, the Kentucky Ramblers moved to Chicago and the legendary WLS National Barn Dance. That radio show from the Eighth Street Theatre had signed on the air on April 12, 1924 -- 18 months before WSM's Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. "We started there in January 1933 and worked until December 1934," Atchison said.
In 1934, he won the Henry Ford fiddling championship at the Chicago World's Fair and in 1946, Atchison took first place in a national championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum. In 1935, the Ramblers headed for radio station WOR in New York City. There, the Kentucky Ramblers became the Prairie Ramblers --switching from country music to the more popular western swing. With the new name came a new wardrobe -- western clothes, boots and hats. At the same time, they hired Rubye Rebecca Blevins, a young singer from Hot Springs, Ark., who had recently changed her name to Patsy Montana. In 1936, she became the first woman in country music to record a million-seller -- "I Wanna Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart." That's Atchison's fiddle on the record. "We wanted to go western because western records were selling," he said. "Country music and bluegrass, you couldn't give it away on records then."
Gene Autry, who had started on the National Barn Dance in 1930, got the Ramblers signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures and they were the backing band on many of his records including "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Old Faithful." "Riding Down The Canyon" became the band's theme song. Hits included "Nobody's Darling But Mine" and "When I Grow Too Old To Dream." Music historian Douglas B. Green -- better known these days as "Ranger Doug" of Riders in the Sky -- has called the Ramblers "one of the finest -- as well as most underrated -- old-time string bands."
CountryWorks.com calls them, "The most commercially successful of the Kentucky bands who made it onto records and radio in the 1930s." They performed once before a crowd of 110,000 in northern Indiana, Atchison said.
The year 1942 found Atchison in Hollywood, where he signed a three-year contract with Columbia Studios. And in 1945, Atchison became a member of Foy Willing's Riders of the Purple Sage. "I went with Jimmy Wakely and Johnny Bond," he said. "We took the place of the Sons of the Pioneer in the Charles Starrett movies. We did 11 pictures a year for three years and then I freelanced for the next 20 years, doing bit parts, riding and minor stunt work, like falling off horses." A broken leg ended his stunt career. And by the 1960s, Atchison had drifted back home to Ohio County. By 1980, 97 of his 300 songs had been recorded, including Glenn Campbell's version of "When You Cry, You Cry Alone," Kaye Starr's "Honky-Tonk Hardwood Floor" and Doris Day's "Crocodile Tears." Atchison's fiddle was heard on records by Merle Travis, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Tex Ritter and other musicians of the era. In 1978, he taught himself to play the banjo -- his 10th and final instrument.
On Aug. 4, 1982, Atchison died at age 70 at the home of his daughter, evangelist Joy Ann Silvey, in Granite City, Ill. They brought him home to Ohio County for burial and laid his worn fiddle atop his closed casket during the service.
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