Down Yonder: A Song History

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"Down Yonder" started out as a popular song for voice and piano, not a fiddle tune. L. Wolfe Gilbert (1886–1970) wrote it, and the sheet music came out in 1921.[1][2] Its verse urges a train to hurry, and its chorus tells of someone beckoning from down yonder.[3] The Peerless Quartet recorded it that same year.[2][4] Since then it is said to have been played mostly as an instrumental, so its words are seldom heard.[4]

1902 photograph of a steam locomotive and tender of the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad

Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad locomotive no. 162, photograph, January 1902. Louis A. Marre Rail Transportation Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Southern string bands picked it up within a few years. Clayton McMichen's group, McMichen's Melody Men, recorded it in November 1926; the Traditional Tune Archive reports Art Rosenbaum's guess that the Peerless record was their model.[2] The Scottdale String Band followed on OKeh in October 1927.[2] The best-known version came in 1934, at the last recording session of Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, with Tanner's son Gordon playing lead fiddle.[5] Gordon Tanner went uncredited for the part.[2] It became the band's biggest seller.[5] A Georgia historical marker honoring the band describes it as a million-selling instrumental cut for RCA Victor.[6] The Tune Archive adds that it ranked third among country records in its first year of release and that RCA kept it in print until 1960.[2]

The tune had a second life on the piano. Del Wood, a pianist with a ragtime touch, had a hit with it in 1951; the record sold a million copies, a first for a woman instrumentalist.[7] Fiddlers kept it too. In the 1980s Art Rosenbaum filmed Gordon Tanner for an episode of a video program on Georgia old-time music, itself titled Down Yonder.[8] The Tune Archive counts it among the most popular old-time pieces ever recorded.[2] It is also included in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[9]

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Sources

  1. Western Michigan University Libraries, Sheet Music Collection: ""Down Yonder", 1921".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Down Yonder".
  3. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Mills Music Library popular music catalog: "Down yonder".
  4. Wikipedia: "Down Yonder".
  5. New Georgia Encyclopedia: "Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers".
  6. The Historical Marker Database: "Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers".
  7. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum: "Del Wood".
  8. Digital Library of Georgia: "Episode of Down Yonder with the Tanner Family".
  9. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".