Bull At The Wagon: A Song History
"Bull at the Wagon" is a three-part breakdown in A major, associated with fiddlers in Texas and Oklahoma.[1][2] It is best known from a 1929 record by the Lewis Brothers, Dempson ("Demp") and Denmon Lewis. From a San Antonio family, the brothers were still children when they moved with it to Crow Flat, New Mexico, in 1902.[1] On July 11, 1929, they recorded four sides for Victor in El Paso, Texas, all of which were issued. Demp played fiddle and Denmon played guitar.[1][3] Victor released "Bull at the Wagon" on V-40172 with "Sally Johnson" on the other side.[3][4] Fiddlers play it in standard tuning or in AEae cross-tuning.[1][2]
John C. H. Grabill, “Freighting in ‘The Black Hills,’ photographed between Sturgis and Deadwood,” photograph, 1891. Library of Congress. No known restrictions. The photograph is from South Dakota, not the Lewis Brothers’ New Mexico.
Oklahoma fiddler Earl Collins learned the tune, by most accounts from the Lewis Brothers' record (some credit Tom Sauber instead), and reworked it, mostly in the first part. His version appears on That's Earl (Briar, 1975).[1][2] In The Devil's Box (1997), the historian Charles Wolfe tied it to Clark Kessinger's "Red Bird" and "Billy Wilson," and the Traditional Tune Archive also links it to "Karo."[1] It has since been printed in tunebooks such as Welling's Hartford Tunebook (1976) and Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983). Later recordings include ones by the Hotmud Family and by Bob Carlin with John Hartford.[1][2] "Bull at the Wagon" and "Sally Johnson" both appear in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[5]
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