Annotation:Little Stream of Whiskey

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LITTLE STREAM OF WHISKEY. AKA and see "Dying Hobo (The)." Old-Time, Song Tune. USA; western N.C., Ky. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Phillips): AA'BB' (Kuntz). Charles Wolfe believes the song was a parody of Caroline Norton's poem "Bingen on the Rhine." It was a famous selection of Mt. Airy, North Carolina, fiddler Tommy Jarrell. Stacy Phillips (1995) notes the second section of his version is attributed to Tommy Hunter. North Georgia band The Swamp Rooters with Lowe Stokes and Bert Layne on fiddles recorded a rewording of the lyric using the same tune called "Prohibition is a Failure" in 1930. Burnet & Rutherford's (1926) lyric begins:

Just a mile west of the water tank on a cold November day,

In a cold and lonesome boxcar a dyin' hobo lay;
His pal sat there before him with a low and drooping head,
Listenin' to the last words his dyin' buddy said.

Source for notated version: Doug Phillips [Phillips].

Printed sources: Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 2, 1995; p. 79.

Recorded sources: Columbia 15133-D (78 RPM), Burnett and Rutherford (1926. Learned "from somebody in Somerset County," Ky.). Mountain 310, Tommy Jarrell - "Joke on the Puppy" (1976. Learned from Pate Martin). Rounder 0036, Fields Ward. Rounder 1004, "The Songs of Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford."

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