Possum Up A Gum Stump: A Song History
“Possum Up a Gum Stump” is at heart a scrap of rhyme rather than a story: the Traditional Ballad Index files it as a non-ballad that is recognized by its first two lines, though the animals named in them vary, while the remaining lines are open-ended.[1] The Index’s earliest date for it is 1925, from Scarborough’s collection, and it lists versions, some under other titles, in the Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore and in John and Alan Lomax’s American Ballads and Folk Songs, where it is reported as a “patting chant,” sung to clapping hands or slapped thighs.[1] The Index also lists a Library of Congress recording by Henry Truvillion (AFS 3983 B2) that goes by a different title.[1]
Allen & Ginter, Opossum, from the Wild Animals of the World series (N25) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, commercial color lithograph, 1888. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.
A stage song with a similar title, “Opossum up a Gum Tree,” was in the repertoire of the African American Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, and the English actor Charles Mathews (1776–1835) is credited with writing down a version of it.[2] The University of Toronto’s JUBA Project, which documents early blackface minstrelsy in Britain, cites Hans Nathan’s view that it was the first known song appropriated by a white man from African American tradition, while noting that how Mathews came by the song is uncertain.[2] The project also says that how far similarly titled folk songs, “Possum up a Gum Stump” among them, draw on the stage song is unknown.[2]
As a fiddle tune the name belongs to several different melodies, which the Traditional Tune Archive gives separate numbered entries, describing its third as unrelated to the earlier ones.[3][4] The Archive’s first entry is a D-major reel associated with Alabama, north Georgia and Arkansas, which it reports was played at a 1914 fiddlers’ contest in Atlanta and appears in Vance Randolph’s 1954 list of Ozark fiddle tunes.[3] Fiddler Charlie Bowman and singer Al Hopkins recorded a version with a sung refrain in New York on May 1, 1926, issued on Vocalion 15377 and Vocalion 5118, and the Archive lists the Vocalion 5118 record, credited to the Hill Billies, under its first tune.[5][3] The Skillet Lickers, led by Gid Tanner and including Clayton McMichen and Riley Puckett, recorded “Possum up the gum stump” for Columbia in Atlanta on December 5, 1930, though the discography lists the issue status of both takes as unknown.[6] Judy House includes “Possum Up A Gum Stump” in Jam Across America, a 178-page jam book of more than 130 songs chosen from the online playlists of dulcimer clubs around the country, all arranged in DAD tuning; its listing does not say which of these melodies it uses.[7]
Sources
- Traditional Ballad Index: "Possum Up a Gum Stump".
- University of Toronto, The JUBA Project: "Opossum up a Gum Tree".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Possum up a Gum Stump (1)".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Possum up a Gum Stump (3)".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Brunswick matrix E2968-E2969 / Charlie Bowman ; Al Hopkins".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W151044. Possum up the gum stump / Clayton McMichen ; Riley Puckett ; Skillet Lickers ; Gid Tanner".
- Judy House: "Jam Across America".
- Image: Allen & Ginter, Opossum, from the Wild Animals of the World series (N25) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, commercial color lithograph, 1888. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.