Devil At The Groundhog: A Song History
"Devil At The Groundhog" appears to be a spelling of the Kentucky breakdown that the Traditional Tune Archive catalogs as "Devil Eat the Groundhog," which it also lists as "Devil Ate the Groundhog"; the "At" form does not turn up in the sources consulted here.[1] The archive gives the tune in G major and traces it to fiddler Owen "Snake" Chapman (1919–2002), who had it from his father, George "Doc" Chapman, born around 1850.[1] Owen's uncle, Hense Chapman, was the source of much of Doc's music, and the archive dates the family's repertoire to the Civil War era and the decades after it.[2] Owen was born near Canada, in Pike County, Kentucky, mined coal for much of his working life until black lung forced him out, and in the late 1960s moved back to Chapman's Hollow, where the family home stood.[3]
Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape with a Hunter and his Dog, pen and brown ink, with brush and gray ink and watercolor, over black chalk, 17th century (?). Shown for its hunter and his dog; it has no connection to the tune.
Chapman had a story to go with the title, as Jeff Titon reported it in 2001: a hunter left the day's skinned game in a room with his dog, and came back to find the dog had eaten it.[1] Chapman recorded the tune on the June Appal album Fiddle Ditty (1990) and on Rounder's Up in Chapman's Hollow (1996), and Paul Smith, who learned it from him, also recorded it for Rounder.[1] In print it appears in Titon's Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001) and in the first volume of Stacy Phillips's Mel Bay collection of traditional American fiddle tunes (1994), which titles it "Devil Ate the Groundhog."[1][4] Larry Conger includes a tune titled "Devil At The Groundhog" in Hoedowns And Breakdowns, a Fingers Of Steel dulcimer book of danceable tunes that comes with an MP3 recording of each song.[5]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Devil Eat the Groundhog".
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Biography: Owen Chapman".
- Musical Traditions: "Owen 'Snake' Chapman".
- East Providence Public Library: "Mel Bay presents the Phillips collection of traditional American fiddle tunes".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hoedowns And Breakdowns".
- Image: Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Landscape with a Hunter and his Dog, pen and brown ink, with brush and gray ink and watercolor, over black chalk, 17th century (?). The Metropolitan Museum of Art.