Juke Joint Hen: A Song History

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"Juke Joint Hen" appears in All Over The Map, Bing Futch's mixed collection of downloadable dulcimer tablature for jam sessions, which sets a few of his own pieces beside folk classics and other material; it is published by J.O.B. Entertainment.[1] The listing gives the tune in DAD tuning and credits Bing Futch as its composer.[1] Futch, who lives in Orlando, Florida, plays the mountain dulcimer among other instruments, with a repertoire running from roots-rock and blues originals to covers, and at the 2016 International Blues Challenge in Memphis he was given the "Best Guitarist" award in the Solo/Duo category though he competed on the mountain dulcimer alone.[2]

A dark-feathered rooster and a white hen, painted in ink and color on silk

Kawabata Gyokushō, Cock and Hen, album leaf, silk, 1887–92. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.

Sources differ on how to credit the piece, since Futch's own website links it to the traditional "Cluck Old Hen."[1][3] His 2007 announcement of the book listed it as "Juke Joint Hen (Cluck Old Hen)" and did not give it the asterisk that marked the completely original tunes.[3] In a 2010 post about playing it with Stephen Seifert at the Suwannee Dulcimer Retreat, he called it "my already pretty messed-with version of 'Cluck Old Hen.'"[4] His store page for the album Dulcimerica: Volume 2, which includes it, calls it "Bing's signature roadhouse blues tune."[5] "Cluck Old Hen" itself is an American reel known across the South and Midwest; Mike Yates notes that it is mostly a banjo piece, though there are many fiddle versions.[6] The Library of Congress holds a recording of Henry Reed fiddling it, with Watha Reed on guitar, made at the Reed family home in Glen Lyn, Giles County, Virginia, on November 26, 1966.[7]

As background to the title, the earliest juke (or jook) joints were defined by the live blues played in them, and they took over spaces made for other purposes, such as an abandoned sharecropper's shack, an open field or a private home.[8] Where the word comes from is uncertain; some scholars trace it to the African word juga, bad or wicked, while others connect it with juice, a name for early electric guitars and music players.[8] In the Jim Crow South these places offered African Americans somewhere safe to gather away from white supervision, and in 1934 Zora Neale Hurston wrote that "musically speaking, the Jook is the most important place in America."[8]

Our book that contains the song "Juke Joint Hen"

Sources

  1. J.O.B. Entertainment: "Bing Futch, All Over The Map".
  2. DulcimerDownloads: "Bing Futch".
  3. Bing Futch: ""All Over The Map" Now On Sale!".
  4. Bing Futch: "Getting down to it.".
  5. Bing Futch: "Digital Music Download: Dulcimerica: Volume 2".
  6. Traditional Tune Archive: "Cluck Old Hen (1)".
  7. Library of Congress: "Cluck Old Hen" (Henry Reed).
  8. Mississippi Encyclopedia: "Juke Joints".
  9. Image: Kawabata Gyokushō, Cock and Hen, album leaf, silk, 1887–92. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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