Citaco

CITACO. AKA - "Citigo," "Citico." AKA and see "Down to the Wildwood to Shoot the Buffalo." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; north Georgia, Tennessee. GDad tuning (fiddle). Citaco is an area north and east of the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The melody is known as a north Georgia tune. It was, for example, in the repertoire of north Georgia fiddler Lowe Stokes (1898-1983, who played with the Skillet Lickers as well as other bands) who learned it under the title "Down to the Wildwood to Shoot the Buffalo." However, when Stokes recorded the tune in 1930 on his Brunswick Records 78 with his band Lowe Stokes' Swamp Rooters, it was titled "Citaco." Some versions sound similar to versions of "Cotton Eyed Joe," as, for example, played John Dykes (of the Dykes Magic City String Band) GDad tuning, and as recorded by Marion Thede in her Fiddle Book. North Carolina fiddler Marcus Martin's version of "Citaco" (recorded in 1942 in the field by Artus Moser) is similar to the Kentucky tune "Calico."

Martin sang this verse to the tune:

Way down in the old Citaco,
The girls they plow and the boys they hoe;
That’s the way they do in the old Citaco,
That’s the way they do in the old Citaco.

Recorded sources: County 527, The Swamp Rooters (Lowe Stokes) - "Old Time Fiddle Classics, vol. 2: Original Recordings 1927-1934." Document DOCD8045, Lowe Stokes in Chronological Order, vol. 1: 1927-1930 (1999 reissue; appears as "Citago").

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index [1].

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