Annotation:Ned Went a Fishing

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NED WENT A FISHING. AKA and see: "Coon Dog (3)," "Davy Dugger/Duggar," "Hawk and the Buzzard (The)," "Shoot that Turkey Buzzard," Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Kentucky. "Ned went a Fishing" is the name of an old string band tune recorded by John V. Walker (1891-1980) in the early 1930's with the band Walker's Corbin (Ky.) Ramblers [1]. The band, remarks music historian Charles Woolfe (Kentucky Country, 1982, p. 40) was an offshoot of an earlier Corbin-based band, Bond's String Band, made up almost entirely of railroad employees (Corbin was regional hub for railroad lines). Walker's Corbin Ramblers recorded in Knoxville in 1930, and in New York in 1934.

The tune is fairly widespread, recorded by Georgia's Fiddlin' John Carson in 1925 as "Hawk and the Buzzard (The)," as "Coon Dog" and "Ned Went a Fishing" in Kentucky, and elsewhere as "Davy Dugger." According to Mike Yates [liner notes to MTCD323 "Far in the Mountains, vol. 3" (2002)] it was "especially popular" among Ozarks Mountains fiddlers, who recorded "a differently phrased version" as "Seneca Square Dance" (Sam Long, 1926) and "Higher Up the Monkey Climbs" (Bob Larkin, 1928).

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