Katie Bar The Door: A Song History

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"Katie Bar the Door," also spelled "Katy Bar the Door," is an old-time breakdown that the Traditional Tune Archive traces to the Virginia musician Roscoe Parrish (1897–1984), who played it on banjo and, by one account, on fiddle as well.[1][2] The archive's two entries for the tune differ on several points: they spell his surname both "Parrish" and "Parish," one places him at Galax in Carroll County while the other places him in Grayson County, and they give the key variously as D, C or G major.[1][2] Parrish's own performance, recorded in 1974, was issued in 1986 on the Heritage album The Old Time Way.[2] The tune is usually played as an instrumental, though words have been collected with it.[1][2]

An old fretless banjo with a wooden neck and round tack-headed body against a gray background

Fretless Tackhead Banjo, American, maple and other woods, about 1840. An early fretless banjo, shown for the banjo playing of the tune's source, Roscoe Parrish; it has no connection to him.

Later recordings listed by the archive include the Harmony Sisters' The Early Years (1999) and Rayna Gellert's 2012 duo album Starch and Iron.[2] The tune is transcribed in Silberberg's Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern (2002) and the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011).[1] According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the phrase in the title had come to mean a rowdy, combative commotion by 1888, the sense being that one should brace for trouble.[3] The archive notes an 1872 Louisiana newspaper report of a band playing a piece called "Katie, Bar the Door," but the sources consulted here do not show whether that was the same melody.[2]

Among dulcimer books, a tune of this name is listed in Mark Gilston's More American Old Time Tunes For Dulcimer, a self-published sheet-music songbook of old-time American tunes sold as a PDF download.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Katie Bar The Door"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Katie Bar the Door".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Katy Bar the Door".
  3. Online Etymology Dictionary: "Katie".
  4. Mark Gilston: "More American Old Time Tunes For Dulcimer".
  5. Image: Fretless Tackhead Banjo, American, maple and other woods, about 1840. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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