Annotation:Wake Up Jacob

Back to Wake Up Jacob

---

WAKE UP JACOB. AKA and see “Wild Horse.” Old Time, Breakdown. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'B. Harry Smith (Folkways FA2951) writes:

An even more elaborate complex of accent variations occur in this Texas violin-guitar performance than took place with similar instrumentation by (Jilson Setters, 1928). Relative freedom with the melody took place earlier in Texas and Louisiana than in the more northern states, probably because of a greater diversification of cultures along the Gulf Coast. A small local area of a somewhat similar style (of which the recording by ‘Uncle Jimmy’ Thompson {Columbia 1928} are excellent examples) developed quite early in Tennessee. The well known tune given here is sometimes known as ‘Wild Horse’, particularly in North Carolina, Kentucky and other central eastern states.

The tune was commercially recorded in 1929 by Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers, and was collected for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph from the playing of Ozarks Mountains fiddlers in the early 1940's.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: OKeh 45375 (78 RPM), Prince Albert Hunt’s Texas Ramblers {1929}. Folkways FA2951, Prince Albert Hunt’s Texas Ramblers (1952. A reissue).

---