Annotation:Up Jumped the Devil
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UP JUMPED THE DEVIL. AKA - "Up Jumped Trouble." Old Time, American; Breakdown or Reel. USA; Arkansas, Texas, Virginia, northern New York. A Major (Brody, Phillips): G Major (Bayard). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Brody, Phillips): AB (Bayard). Bayard (1981) says this tune is a compound of familiar melodic formulas. Thede’s “Berlin Polka (2)” has a first part that sounds like the first part of "Up Jumped the Devil". Mike Yates (2002) points out ‘A’ part similarities between Pug Allen’s (of Stuarts Draft, Augusta County, Va.) version of the tune and a strain of “Wake Up Susan” coupled with the second strain of “Black Mountain Rag.” Yates remarks he has also heard Allen’s version played by Oscar ‘Red’ Wilson of Ledger, North Carolina, who called it “Up Jumped Trouble.” The tune appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. It was first recorded by Byron Parker’s band on a 78 RPM, although Parker was not a musician in the band, but its announcer and manager. The band featured Snuffy Jenkins on banjo and Homer ‘Pappy’ Sherrill on fiddle. Glen Godsey says he learned the tune as a youngster in Texas around 1947—“All of the Amarillo fiddlers played it”—and Vivian Williams says the tune formerly was “fairly popular among the old timers at (the national fiddle contest in) Weiser in the 1960’s.”
Source for notated version: Bradley Grimshaw (northern N.Y., 1958) [Bayard]; New Lost City Ramblers [Brody]; Tommy Jackson [Phillips].
Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 359, pp. 355 356. Brody (Fiddler’s Fakebook), 1983; p. 282. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 249.
Recorded sources: Adelphi 2002, Hickory Wind “At the Wednesday Night Waltz.” Folkways FA 2397, New Lost City Ramblers “Vol. 2.” Musical Traditions MTCD321-2, Pug Allen (et al) – “Far in the Mountains” (2002). Voyager VRDC 347, “Vivian and Phil Williams Live.”