Annotation:Old Granny Blair

Back to Old Granny Blair

OLD GRANNY BLAIR. AKA and see "Old Molly Hare." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Kentucky. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Old Granny Blair" is usually played and sung as a variant of "Old Molly Hare" (a derivative of Nathaniel Gow's "Largo's Fairy Dance") however, source Estill Bingham's (1899-1990) version is distanced. He sang this ditty to the tune:

Old Granny Blair, what're you doing there?
Running through the cotton patch as fast as I can tear.
Legs like a deer and feet like a bear,
Running through the cotton patch as fast as I can tear.

The lyric is shared with Bascon Lamar Lunsford's version of "Old Granny Rattle-Trap (1)." Vance Randolph collected several versions of the song in Missouri, which he published in his wonderful Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore: Roll Me in Your Arms, vol. 1 (1992, No. 118). This from Mr. L.K. of Cyclone, Mo., in 1931, learned around the year 1890:

Old Granny Blair, what you doin' there?--
Settin' on a dog turd pickin' out the hair.

I picked out one, I picked out two,
I picked out another 'un, an' give it to you.

Old Granny Blump, settin' on a stump,
Callin' for a currycomb to curry down her cunt.

Randolph points out the form of the couplets: one person ask a foolish question, and receives an equally foolish nonsensical put-down.

Source for notated version: Estill Bingham (Pineville, Bell County, Ky., c. 1986) [Titon].

Printed sources: Titon (Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes), 2001; No. 115, p. 143.

Recorded sources:

See/hear Estill Bingham play the tune on youtube.com [1]
Hear Bingham's field recording at Berea Digital Archive [2]
See banjo tab for the tune [3]