Annotation:Cindy (1)

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CINDY [1]. AKA and see "Cindy in the Summertime," "Cindy in the Meadows," "Get Along Home Cindy," "Git Along Cindy," "J'etais au Bal," "Old Time Cinda," "Run Along Home Cindy," "Whoop 'Em Up Cindy," Old-Time, Song and Breakdown. USA; Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi. D Major (most versions): G Major (John Brown). Standard or ADae tuning (fiddle). AB (Brody): AABB (Phillips/1989 {the 'B' part is 'crooked' in Phillip's version}): AA'BB (Phillips, 1994). A widely known frolic tune, appearing in many folk music collections and even old elementary school songbooks. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountains fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954, and was recorded for the Library of Congress in 1939 by Mississippi fiddler John A. Brown. A very popular Cajun version of the tune, probably borrowed from the American song, is "J'etais au Bal" (I Went to the Dance Last Night). Verses set to the tune are many, including several "floaters":

Cindy in the summertime,
Cindy in the fall,
Can't have Cindy all the time,
Don't want Cindy at all.
Chorus Get along home,
Get along home,
Get along home,
Cindy, fare you well.

You ought to see my Cindy,
She lives way down South,
She's so sweet the honey bees
All swarm around her mouth.

Wish I had a needle
As fine as it could sew,
I'd sew that gal to my coat-tail,
And down the road I'd go.

Went upon the mountain,
To give my horn a blow,
Hollered back to Cindy,
Oh yander she go. (Rosenbaum)

When I was a little lad,
About six inches high,
I used to court the pretty girls
To hear the old folks cry;
Get a-long down, down Big Sandy,
Get a-long down, down Big Sandy,
Get a-long down, down Big Sandy,
That's the place for you. (Thomas & Leeder)

The Big Sandy River, referred to in Thomas & Leeder's lyric, forms the border between Kentucky and West Virginia and flows into the Ohio River at Catlettsburg, Ky. It was a flat-boat trade route before the advent of the railroads. See also similar stanzas printed by African-American collector Thomas Talley in Negro Folk Rhymes (1922) under the title "She Hugged Me and Kissed Me." A song derived from the well-known "Cindy", is a "Cindy" from the singing of Dan Tate (b. 1896), of Fancy Gap, Carroll County, Va.. It goes:

Railroad, a plank road,
A river and canal;
If it hadn't have been for Doctor Grey,
There never would have been any hell.

Cho:
Get along home Cindy,
Get along home I say;
Get along home Cindy girl,
For I am a-going away.

A railroad, a plank road,
A river and canoe;
If it hadn't have been for old John Jones,
They never would a-killed old Jude.

File:Hopkins.jpg

Al Hopkins

Tate said that Jude was a slave of a Doctor Gray, who abused her when she became pregnant and would not tell who the father of her child was. "Old Time Cinda" (backed with "Silly Bill") was recorded in New York for OKeh Records on January 15, 1925. by an unnamed string band composed of musicians from the upper South, led by fiddler Al Hopkins. According to Mark Green, when Ralph Peer (OKeh's man running the recording session) asked for the groups' name, Hopkins is said to have replied (approximately), 'We're nothing but a bunch of hillbillies from North Carolina and Virginia. Call us anything." The record was issued as "Vocal chorus by Al Hopkins/The Hill Billies," the first use of the term in association with old-time music [see Wayne Daniel, Pickin' on Peachtree, 1990, p. 56).

Sources for notated versions: New Lost City Ramblers [Brody]; Alan Block [Phillips]; Fox Fraley (Lawrence County, Ky., 1911) [Thomas & Leeder].

Printed sources: Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; p. 69. Phillips (Fiddlecase Tunebook), 1989; p. 10. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 53. Rosenbaum (Folk Visions and Voices: Traditional Music and Song in North Georgia), 1989; pp. 12-13. Thomas and Leeder (The Singin' Gathering), 1939; p. 23.

Recorded sources: Bluebird 5488B, Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers (North Ga.) {1934. As "Git Along"}. County 405, "The Hill-Billies." County 518, Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers- "Echoes of the Ozarks, vol. I" (appears as "Get Along Home Miss Cindy"). County 544, Clayton McMichen- "Georgia Fiddle Bands, Vol. 2." Document 8039, "The Hill Billies/Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 1" (reissue. Appears as "Cinda"). OKeh 40294 (78 RPM), The Hill Billies, 1925. Folk Legacy Records FSA-17, Hobart Smith - "America's Greatest Folk Instrumentalist" (appears as 1st tune of "Banjo Group #2"). Folkways FA 2399, New Lost City Ramblers- "vol. 4." Musical Traditions MTCD321-2, Dan Tate (et al) - "Far in the Mountains, volumes 1 & 2" (2002).

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Hear Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters' recording on youtube.com [2]

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