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Sugar Hill
Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia.
ARTIST: Tommy Jarrell
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: Earliest recording 1928 by Crockett Ward & his Boys; Composed by George Washington Dixon some time prior to 1827, and a version's of Dixon's song is included in Christy's Negro Songster, a collection of Minstrel songs that was published in New York, in 1855.
A version of Jinny Get Around titled "Old John Tyler" dates to 1841 (Lomax: Our Singing Country) and has the standard Sugar Hill lyrics with similar form and melody.
RECORDING INFO: Frank Bode, "Sugar Hill" (on FBode1); Dad Crockett, "Sugar Hill" (Brunwick 372, c. 1929); Virginia Mountain Boomers, "Sugar Hill" (Gennett 6687, 1929); Crockett Ward & his Boys "Sugar Hill" (OKeh 45179, 1928); Biograph 6003, "The Original Bogtrotters." Copper Creek CCCD 0193, Bill and Libby Hicks – “South of Nowhere.” County 534, "Round the Heart of Old Galax, vol. II." County 2702, Tommy Jarrell & Fred Cockerham - "Tommy and Fred." Heritage 054, The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers "Brandywine '83: Music of French America" (1984). Heritage Records, “June Apple, Old Time Fiddling & Clawhammer Banjo, Tommy Jarrell, Kyle Creed, Audine Lineberry & Bobby Patterson” (1972). June Appal 0067, Roan Mountain Hilltoppers - "Seedtime on the Cumberland" (1992). Merimac 9000, Dan Gellert & Shoofly - "Forked Deer" (1986. Learned from Fields Ward "and elsewhere," slightly different than Tommy Jarrell's version). Musical Traditions MTCD321-2, Dan Tate – “Far in the Mountains, vols. 1 & 2” (2002). Rounder 0035, Fuzzy Mountain String Band- "Summer Oaks and Porch" (1973. Learned from Tommy Jarrell). Rounder CD 0371, Mac Benford and the Woodshed All-Stars - “Willow” (1996). String (Topic) 802, “Emmett W. Lundy: Fiddle Tunes from Grayson County, Virginia; Recorded in Galax for the Library of Congress, 1941” (1977). Benford, Mac; and the Woodshed All-Stars. Willow, Rounder 0371, CD (1996), trk# 4; Bogtrotters (Bog Trotters). Original Bogtrotters, Biograph RC 6003, LP (1968), trk# 7 [1937-42]; Brown, Fleming. Fleming Brown, Folk Legacy FSI-004, LP (1962), trk# 13; Camp Creek Boys. Original Camp Creek Boys Through the Years, Mountain 312, LP (197?), trk# 10; Carlin, Bob. Brody, David (ed.) / Banjo Picker's Fakebook, Oak, Fol (1985), p161b; Cohen, John and Penny. String Band Project, Elektra EKS 7292, LP (1965), trk# B.01; English, Logan. American Folk Ballads, Monitor MF 388, LP (196?), trk# B.01b; Fuzzy Mountain String Band. Summer Oaks and Porch, Rounder 0035, LP (1973), trk# B.05b; Fuzzy Mountain String Band. Brody, David (ed.) / Fiddler's Fakebook, Oak, Sof (1983), p269; Gaskin, Phyllis. Mountain Dulcimer - Galax Style, Heritage (Galax) 094C, Cas (1991), trk# 16; Gellert, Dan; and Shoofly. Forked Deer, Marimac 9000, Cas (1986), trk# B.02 George, Franklin/Frank. Reflections of the Past, Roane RR 104, Cas (1995), trk# 2.02; Highnight, Luke; and His Ozark Strutters. Old Time String Band Classics, County 531, LP (1975/reis), trk# 1 [1928/11/22] (Sailing On The Ocean); Hutchins, Esker. Clawhammer Banjo, Vol. 3, County 757, LP (1978), trk# 9 Iron Mountain String Band (Galax). Music from the Mountain, Heritage (Galax) 101C, Cas (1992), trk# 12 Jarrell, Tommy; and Kyle Creed. June Apple, Mountain 302, LP (1972), trk# 4; Jarrell, Tommy. Fiddler Magazine, Fiddler Mag., Ser, 2/1, p28(1995) [1980s]; Lundy, Emmett. Fiddle Tunes from Grayson County, String 802, LP (1977), trk# 5 [1941/08] ; MacKenzie, Tom. Finally Tuned, Rooster 104, LP (1980), trk# 3c Martin, Chick. Devil's Riding Horse. 44th Annual Old Time Fiddler's Convention, Union Grove SS-2, LP (1978), trk# B.03; Osborne, Uncle Charlie (Charlie N.). 100 Years Farther On, June Appal JA 0064C, Cas (199?), trk# 2; Pine Ridge Boys. Fiddler's Grove. Old Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass ... 1975. Vol. 6, Galaxie, LP (1975), trk# 27; Pine River Boys with Maybelle. Outback, Heritage (Galax) 003 (III), LP (1974), trk# A.07; Pine Ridge Boys and Patsy. Stringband Music from Mt. Airy, Heritage (Galax) 029 (XXIX), LP (1981), trk# A.01; Queen, Mary Jane; and Family. Fist Full of Songs, Charlotte Folk Music Soc CFMS 101, Cas (199?), trk# A.08; Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. Seedtime on the Cumberland. Sampler 1990-91, June Appal JA 0067C, Cas (1992), trk# 13; Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. Brandywine '83. The 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Brand..., Heritage (Galax) 054, LP (1984), trk# 16; Robertson, Walt. American Northwest Ballads, Folkways FA 2046, LP (1960/1955), trk# B.07; Roundtown Boys. Deadheads and Suckers, Swallow 2001, LP (1978), trk# B.03; Rustical Quality String Band. Rustical Quality String Band, Red Dog RD 8312, LP (1983), trk# A.01; Rutherford, Enoch; and the Gold Hill Band. Old Cap'n Rabbit, Heritage (Galax) 080, Cas (1989), trk# 11; Rutherford, Enoch. Old Five String, Vol 2, Heritage (Galax) 052, Cas (1991), trk# 10; Sauber, Tom. Festival of Fiddle Tunes, Voyager VRLP 326-S, LP (1979), trk# 14; Smith, Paul. Devil Eat the Groundhog, Rounder 0409, CD (1999), trk# 22 Spencer, Ed. Traditional Music From Grayson and Carroll Counties, Folkways FS 3811, LP (1962), trk# 18 [1960ca]; Walker, Homer. Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia, Smithsonian SF 40079, CD (1998), trk# 23 [1977/03/08] ; Ward, Crockett; & his Boys. Round the Heart of Old Galax, Vol 2., County 534, LP (1980), trk# A.01 [1927/09/06]
RELATED TO: Liza Jane; Chicken in the Bread Tray; Clyde's Tune #1; Jenny/Jinny Get Around; Angeline the Baker; (not related to Dolly Parton’s Sugar Hill)
OTHER NAMES: Sailing on the Ocean
SOURCES: Mudcat DT; Folk Index; Kuntz-Ceolas; Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 193, "Sugar Hill" (1 text, 1 tune); Brody, David (ed.) / Guitar Pickers Fakebook, Oak, Sof (1984), p139; Erbsen, Wayne. Erbsen, Wayne / Manual on How to Play the 5-String Banjo for the com...., Erbsen, sof (1974), p26; New Lost City Ramblers. Cohen, John, Mike Seeger & Hally Wood / Old Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1976/1964), p193; The Virginia Mountain Boomers (The Sweet Brothers with vocals by Ernest Stoneman) recorded a song called “Sugar Hill” (in G major), actually it is the song “Devilish Mary” with the chorus of “Sugar Hill” tacked on. Fuzzy Mountain String Band (North Carolina) [Brody]; Tommy Jarrell (Mt. Airy, North Carolina) [Jack Tuttle/Fiddler Magazine]. Fiddler Magazine, Spring 1995; pg. 28. Kuntz (Ragged but Right), 1987; pg. 303-304. Brody (Fiddler’s Fakebook), 1983; pg. 269.
NOTES: Old-Time song and fiddle breakdown. Typical lyrics are: "If you want to get your eye knocked out/If you want to get your fill/If you want to get your head blowed off/Go up on Sugar Hill". Other floating verses are from "Bile Dem Cabbage," "Possum up a Gum Stump," and "Jinny Get Around."
A version of the distinctive chorus is found in Lomax- Our Singing Country as "Jinny Get Around" also titled "Old John Tyler" which dates to 1841. It has the standard Sugar Hill chorus lyrics with similar form and melody:
Chorus 2: Want to git your eye knocked out,
And want to git your fill,
Want to git your eye knocked out,
Git on the mountain mill.
From Mike Yeats: Sugar Hill was a term used to denote the rough part of town where anything was available - at a price! Tommy Jarrell, and many of his contemporaries, had the following verse which makes this clear:
Do you want to get your eye knocked out?
Do you want to get your fill?
Do you want to get your eye knocked out?
Then go to Sugar Hill.
According to Yeats, the parent song of Sugar Hill, "Long Tail Blue" is believed to have been composed by George Washington Dixon some time prior to 1827, and a version's of Dixon's song is included in Christy's Negro Songster, a collection of Minstrel songs that was published in New York, in 1855.
Mike Yeats in 2006: "The earliest version known to me can be dated to 1912 and appears in JAF XXV p. 154, as 'Tater Hill'. The Ward family of Galax recorded the song in 1928 (OK 45179)and Ernest Stoneman, also of Galax, recorded it a year later (Gnt 6687). An Ozark version - Sailing on the Ocean - was recorded in 1930 by Luke Highnight & His Ozark Strutters. But this is not the full story. In 1827 George Washington Dixon began singing a song called 'My Long Tail Blue'. The song was printed in 'Christy's Negro Songster' (New York, 1855) pp. 149 - 50 and, as such has occasionally been collected - see the version in the Frank Brown Collection, volume 3 (p. 502). It seems that Dixon's tune was the origin of that used for 'Sugar Hill' and, over the years, additional 'floating' verses were added. This happened as Dixon's verses began to be dropped. See, for example, the version printed in Roberts' 'Sang Branch Settlers' (Austin, 1974. pp. 174 - 75 & 347, which still contains a couple of Dixon's verses. Incidentally, when I visited Toe Nail Gap with Tommy Jarrell, I asked him about his verse which mentions the Gap. 'Where does that verse come from?' I asked. And Tommy replied 'I guess I made that one up myself' or words to that effect."
It is sometimes found in the Ozarks, under the title Bunker Hill, and is related to the Kentucky tune, Jenny [Jinny] Get Around. Dan's second verse also appears in the song Run, Mollie, Run that was recorded in the 1920's by Henry 'Ragtime Tex' Thomas (reissued on Yazoo1080/1), whilst the third verse - which is similar to verses found in the song The Derby Ram - has also turned up occasionally on the lips of black singers, such as Homer Walker of Glen Lynn, VA. (Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40079), and others from as far away as Mississippi and Alabama.
Minstrel Verse:
Dey take me out on tater hill,
Dey make me dance against my will,
Dey make me dance on sharp toed stones,
While ebery *feller laughs and groans.
From Andrew Kuntz: The song has African-American roots and 'Sugar Hill' is said to signify the 'wild part of town', the red-light district. Tom Paley says The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. The tune has come to be identified with Galax, Va., style string bands and it has also been described as a Surrey County, North Carolina, classic number. The phrase 'getting your eye knocked out' refers to copulation, according to Tom Paley.
From Kerry Blech (rec. old-time): Dave Howard and Pete Honig put out a dynamite cassette on the Marimac label. They played Sugar Hill after Herbert & Earl Sweet which they learned from a tape Larry MacBrides had pieced together from various takes on Gennett by The Virginia Mountain Boomers (Supertone, and was issued) or as The Sweet Brothers on Electrobeam. Stoneman grabbed the Sweet Bros at a festival in the 1920s, rehearsed them, brought them to the studio and backed them on guitar. They've added several verses to those done by the Boomers -- though they used the Boomers' melody, but hopped up. The Boomers' lyrics were more along the line of "Devilish Mary," except for the typical "Sugar Hill" chorus.
E.C. Perrow collected a version from Tennessee mountain whites in 1911. His explanation of the lyrics though inaccurate is this:
1 When the church now called Mary's Chapel was built, there was much dispute among the parishioners as to what the church should be named. One party stood for "Mary's Chapel," another for "Mount Zion," and another for "Tate's Hill." Officially the first prevailed; but the common people chose the last, which by folk-etymology they transformed to "Taterhill." The dispute, however, was for a time very violent, and the contending parties several times came to blows,—"drawed rocks en knives," as my friend Dave Noe expressed it. This stanza is a part of a song which sprang up to celebrate this contest. Even to this day it is not infrequent to have religious meetings broken up by a free-for-all fight. The men bring their pistols and their whiskey to the church, and, if things do not go to suit them, they sometimes resort to violence. I remember on one occasion the group on the inside of the church were besieged by the Moore clan from the outside. My cousin succeeded in holding the doorway against them by knocking down each man as he came up the steps, while the women and children were taken out through a window at the back of the building. (EC Perrow JOAFL Southern Folk Rymes).
There is a possible connection with the old ballad (Child 43) Broomfield Hill which
concludes: "O' her heart's blude ye'd drunken your fill." (Kinloch 1827). A broadside was published in the New York in 1846. Certainly there's no resemblance of the ballad but perhaps the fundamental rhyme was picked up from this source.
Here are the lyrics to Sugar Hill by Tommy Jarrell:
SUGAR HILL- Tommy Jarrell (From Andrew Kuntz)
Five cents in my pocket change, two dollars in my bill;
If I had ten dollars more I'd climb old Sugar Hill.
Possum sittin' on a 'simmon tree, cider's in my mill,
And if I had ten dollars more I'd climb on Sugar Hill.
If I hadn't no horse to ride, I'd be found a-walkin',
Up and down old Toenail Gap, you can hear my woman talkin'.
Jaybird and the sparrow hawk, they had a fight together,
They took all around the briar patch, went to it down to a feather.
(all the above from Tommy Jarrell)
Squirrel's got a bushy tail, Possum's tail is bare,
Rabbit ain't got no tail at all, just a little old piece of hair.
Possum up a simmon tree, raccoon on the ground,
Raccoon says, "Hey, Possum, won't you toss them simmons down.”
I'm getting lonesome for my gal, I want a drink of rye.
I'm going on to Sugar Hill, or know the reason why!
If you want to get your eye knocked out, if you want to get your fill,
If you want to get your eye knocked out, go on to Sugar Hill.
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