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With A Chicken On My Back/Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy All the Time
Old-Time Breakdown and Blues Song; Southeast Region;
ARTIST: Three Versions Perrrow 1909 JOAFL; WITH A CHICKEN ON MY BACK
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: Early 1900’s (Uncle Dave Macon- 1924)
RELATED TO: Gonna Have a Feast Here Tonight (Rabbit in a Log); Salty Dog;
RECORDING INFO: Uncle Dave Macon, "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy" (Vocalion 14848, 1924); Henry Whitter "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy" (OK 40296- 1924); John Henry Howard "Gonna Keep My Skillet Greasy" (Gnt 3124- 1925); ( Pete Seeger, "Skillet Good and Greasy" (on PeteSeeger02, PeteSeegerCD01); Uncle Dave Macon “Travelin' Down the Road” County CCS-CD-115 (Original recording January 22, 1935); Any Old Time String Band. Ladies Choice, Bay 217, LP (1980), cut#B.05 (Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy); Bibb, Leon. Leon Bibb Sings Folk Songs, Vanguard VRS 9041, LP (196?), cut#B.04 (Skillet); Guthrie, Woody. Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs, Vol. 2, Folkways FA 2484, LP (1964), cut#A.01 (Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy); Macon, Uncle Dave. At Home, His Last Recordings, 1950., Bear Family LC 15214, LP (1987), cut# 7 (Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy); Macon, Uncle Dave. Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy, Old Homestead OHCS-148, LP (1983), cut#A.01 (Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy); Pegram, George; and Parham, Red (Walter). Music From South Turkey Creek, Rounder 0065, LP (1976), cut#b10 (Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy); Siggins, Bob. Old-Time Banjo Project, Elektra EKL-7276, LP, cut# 11; Stover, Don; & the White Oak Mountain Boys. West Virginia Coal Miner Blues, Old Homestead 90011, LP (197?), cut# 5 (Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy); Tarriers. Tarriers at the "Bitter End", Decca DL 4342, LP (196?), cut#B.01 (Skillet); Watson, Doc. Folk Go-Go, Verve/Folkways FV 9011, LP (197?), cut# 14; Watson, Doc. Old-Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Part 1, Folkways FA 2355, LP (1961);
OTHER NAMES: "Gonna Keep My Skillet Greasy," “Skillet Good And Greasy," “Shanty Blues,” (Ragtime Texas); “Bootlegger’s Blues” (Mississippi Shieks);
SOURCES: Warner 122, "Gonna Keep My Skillet Greasy" (1 text, 1 tune) Silber-FSWB, p. 157 "Keep My Skillet Good And Greasy" (1 text)
NOTES: This song is recognized primarily by the line "(Gonna) keep my skillet (good and) greasy all the time." It is related to Rabbit in a Log/ Feast Here Tonight and has floating lyrics with “Salty Dog.”
From Stewie: Uncle Dave first recorded this song acoustically in 1924 and it was his first 'hit'. It continued to be a favorite so it was redone in better sound in 1935. According to Charles Wolfe, Sid Harkreader always said Uncle Dave got it from 'an old colored man' who worked at the Readyville Mill near where Macon worked.
The song was part of that 'common stock' of banjo and fiddle tunes and songs in the black and white traditions – pieces that drew on a huge collection of couplets and quatrains that were nearly all interchangeable from one to another. The 'gwines' and 'I'ses' link it to the minstrel era and the last verse here betrays its connection to the large “Some people say a preacher can't steal' / “Mourner, You Shall Be Free” family. In Uncle Dave's version, it's 'a man' on the log. In his wonderful 'Screening the Blues: Aspects of Blues Tradition' [New York, Da Capo Press, 1968], Paul Oliver traces the history of 'Mourner' from the minstrel days where it was '*black man' on the log, through to 'the preacher' taking his place as a figure of derision. Frank Stokes, a medicine show performer from Memphis, recorded in his version of 'Mourner', the title of which was abbreviated to 'You Shall':
Well you see that preacher laid behind the log
Hand on the trigger, got his eye on the hog
The hog says (grunt), the gun says 'zip',
Jump on the hog with all his grip
He had pork chops, yeah,
And backbone, and spareribs, yeah,
Now when the good lord sets me free.
[Transcription from Frank Stokes 'You Shall', reissued on Frank Stokes 'Creator of the Memphis Blues' Yazoo CD 1056. Original recording August 1927, Paramount 12518].
Oliver suggest (op cit p58) that the target in Stokes' song was changed possibly because Paramount was 'alive to the sensibilities' of his listeners', but when Howard Odum collected the song [Howard W. Odum 'Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes', Journal of American Folklore, vol 24, no 94, 1911], the words still ran:
Great big *black man, settin' on a log
One eye on the trigger, one eye on the hog.
*edited for racial content.
Here are the lyrics to “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy” from Perrow 1909:
KEEP MY SKILLET GOOD AND GREASY- Three Versions Perrrow 1909
11. WITH A CHICKEN ON MY BACK
A.(From East Tennessee; mountain whites; from memory; 1909)
With a chicken on my back,
I'm goin' to my shack,
En' it's nobody's business but mine.
Lord! Lord!
En' it's nobody's business but mine.1
B. (From Mississippi; negroes; MS. of M. F. Rubel; 1909)
With them bloodhounds on my track,
And a chicken on my back,
I'se gwine to make it to my shanty, if I can.
If I can, can, can,
If I can, can, can,
I'se gwine to make it to my shanty, if I can.
With a ham-bone on my back,
And them bloodhounds on my track
I'se gwine to keep my skillet greasy, if I can.
C.(From Mississippi; negroes; MS. of A. B. Pitts)
Chickens on my back, and bloodhounds on my track,
I've got to make it to my shanty, if I can.
Rabbit on the log, got no rabbit dog,
Shoot him with my pistol forty-four.
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