Annotation:Old Mammy Knickerbocker

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OLD MAMMY KNICKERBOCKER. AKA - "Old Mother Knickerbocker." AKA and see "Miss McLeod's Reel (1)," "Virginia Reel (5)," "Nigger in the Woodpile (2)," "John Brown (2)," "Uncle Joe," "Enterprise and Boxer." American, Reel. USA, southwestern Pa. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The title is rare for the popular tune usually known as "Miss McLedod's Reel" (and variant spellings), but also known by a variety of other titles, especially in America. "Old Mammy Knickerbocker" was one southwestern Pennsylvania title, and the similar "Knickerbocker Reel" was the title used on Decca Records 5062 (78 RPM) by the Rustic Revelers (about whom nothing is known), recorded in Richmond, Indiana. There was a bawdy rhyme associated with the tune, that went in part:

Old Mother Nickabocker doesn't give a damn,
Just let a n****r f**k her as any other man.

Source for notated version: (allegedly from) William B. Gressley via McCullough (southwestern Pa., 1959) [Bayard].

Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 249D, pp. 211-212.

Recorded sources: Decca Records 5062 (78 RPM), Rustic Revelers (1934, backed with "Chicken Reel").

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