Bill Cheatam: A Song History
"Bill Cheatham" is an A-major fiddle tune in standard tuning, widely known in the United States and spelled in several ways, among them Cheatum, Cheatem, and "Cheat 'Em."[1] The Traditional Tune Archive files it as an old-time breakdown.[2] Miles Krassen and others think it probably began in the South.[1] Folklorist Charles Wolfe found it was a "category" tune at an 1899 fiddle contest in Gallatin, Tennessee: each contestant offered a version, and a prize went to the strongest.[1] In Missouri, collector R. P. Christeson said he did not hear it until the mid-1940s, although Vance Randolph's list of Ozark fiddle tunes, published in 1954, includes an "Old Bill Cheatum."[1] Notated versions come from Floyd Smith of Cole County, Missouri, Max Collins of Oklahoma, the Texas-based Red Headed Fiddlers, and Henry Reed of Virginia.[1][2] The sources consulted here do not say whom the title names, if anyone.
Ben Shahn, “Street musicians, Maynardville, Tennessee,” photograph, October 1935. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.
Texas fiddlers figure early on record. On July 1, 1922, in New York, Eck Robertson recorded a side for Victor titled "Brilliancy and Cheatum," but it was never issued.[3][4] The Traditional Tune Archive names Robertson's 1922 recording as the tune's earliest on record, though it gives the title differently, as part of a "Brilliancy Medley."[1] The Dallas-based Red Headed Fiddlers and the Allen Brothers both recorded it under the title "Cheat 'Em," and Blind Joe Mangrum recorded it in 1928.[1][2] Tennessee's Fiddlin' Arthur Smith recorded it at an October 1940 RCA Victor session in Atlanta, the same session that produced his "K.C. Stomp" and "Peacock Rag."[1][5]
Bluegrass musicians picked it up as well. Kenny Baker recorded it for County in 1968, and Vassar Clements and Jerry Douglas also recorded it.[2] Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer book Join the Jam II has two arrangements of it.[6]
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