Annotation:Old Granny Rattle-Trap (1)
Back to Old Granny Rattle-Trap (1)
OLD GRANNY RATTLE-TRAP. AKA and see "Granny Will Your Dog Bite? (`)" Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Tennessee, Arkansas. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountian fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Z"Old Granny Rattle-Trap" was recorded by Vocalion in 1924 by Ambrose Gaines "Uncle Am" Stuart [1] (1853–1926, Morristown, Tenn.).
Stuart was aged 73 at the time he recorded (traveling to New York to do so), and was the district manager for a local burglarproof lock company. He had learned his music in the Civil War era and was well-known as a dance fiddler who occasionally played with Charlie Bowman and the Hill Billies. His job apparently left him well off; enough so, remarked Hill Billies member Tony Alderman, that he would occasionally "come out on stage at the end of a show and ask the audience if they knew of someone who loved their kind of music but was too sick or poor to attend the show. If anyone identified such a person, Uncle Am would hand over all the money he earned that night to give to that person..." [Bob L. Cox, Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman: An East Tennessee Old-time Music Pioneer, 2007). Uncle Am's brother was a renowned Nashville evangelist minister, Rev. George R. Stuart.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Recorded sources: Vocalion 5048 (78 RPM), Uncle Am Stuart (1924).