Goin' Uptown: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"Goin' Uptown," also written "Goin' Up Town" or "Going Uptown," is an old-time reel in D, and the Traditional Tune Archive traces one of its sources to the Tennessee fiddler Oscar Stone.[1] The archive reproduces a note John Hartford gave with his transcription in The Devil's Box (Winter 1988): Stone added a part to "Ragtime Annie," which the tune echoes in its first section, and so, in the account of Nashville fiddler Howdy Forrester, could call it his own.[1] The archive adds that the tune shares some melodic material with "Avalon Quickstep."[1]

Painting of a sunny village street between old stone houses, with a wooden outside staircase, a woman in a doorway and a cat crossing the road.

Camille Corot, A Village Street: Dardagny, oil on canvas, 1852, 1857, or 1863. A village street rather than an uptown one, shown in fun; it has no connection to the tune.

The earliest recording the tune archive lists is by Dr. Humphrey Bate and His Possum Hunters, a band from Castalian Springs, Tennessee, that the Sumner County Museum credits as the first string band to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, a show it notes was called WSM's Barn Dance until 1927.[1][2] They cut it in Atlanta on March 3, 1928, with fiddle, banjo, guitar, string bass and dance calls, and it was issued as Brunswick 232.[3] The Marimac label later reissued the Bate side on an anthology of old-time string bands titled after the tune.[1]

The tune archive also lists a 1977 recording by Vermont's Arm and Hammer String Band on the album New England Contra Dance Music, and points to a 1972 field recording by the north Tennessee fiddler Sammie Dwyer in the Berea Sound Archives.[1] Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione include it in 30 Old Time Tunes, a matched pair of dulcimer and autoharp books that give each song in two keys, with demo recordings.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Goin' Uptown"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Goin' Up Town".
  2. Sumner County Museum: "The Story Behind the First Sounds of the Grand Ole’ Opry".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Brunswick matrix AT364-AT365. Goin' up-town / Dr. Humphrey Bate Possum Hunters".
  4. Neal Walters And Heidi Cerrigione: "30 Old Time Tunes".
  5. Image: Camille Corot, A Village Street: Dardagny, oil on canvas, 1852, 1857, or 1863. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song