Rye Whiskey: A Song History

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"Rye Whiskey" is a traditional American drinking song built from many loosely linked verses about the toll liquor has taken on the singer; the Traditional Ballad Index gives 1910 as its earliest date and records it in Appalachia, the Midwest, the Southeast and the South.[1] The Index treats it as all but inseparable from "The Wagoner's Lad," and says that the "Jack of Diamonds" branch of the song, though some might count it a song of its own, is so intermixed with "Rye Whiskey" that its compiler sees no way to separate the two.[1] Writing in Southern Cultures, the poet Michael McFee points to the musicologist Samuel P. Bayard's list of names the melody has carried, among them "Jack of Diamonds" and "Clinch Mountain," and notes that W. H. Auden printed the song as an anonymous piece in his 1938 Oxford Book of Light Verse.[2]

Small silver model of a still, with a round pot on three legs, a tall conical head and a spout

George Manjoy, Miniature whiskey still, silver, 1685–86. A miniature silver still, shown for the whiskey of the title; it has no connection to the song.

Fiddlin' John Carson recorded it as "The Drunkard's Hiccups" for OKeh in December 1925, and the cowboy singer Jules Verne Allen recorded it as "Jack o' Diamonds" for Victor on April 21, 1928.[1][2][3][4] Tex Ritter, accompanying himself on guitar, recorded "Rye Whiskey, Rye Whiskey" in New York on March 15, 1933, and the recording was issued on many labels, among them Vocalion, Perfect and Columbia.[5] McFee calls it a song that made Ritter famous and mentions Ritter performing it while riding a donkey in the 1936 film Song of the Gringo.[2] The song also appears in the Alan Lomax Kentucky recordings, whose originals belong to the Library of Congress: Lee Skeens played it on the fiddle at Wooton, Leslie County, in October 1937, and three performers recorded it at Fort Thomas in March 1938.[6][7]

Don Pedi sets "Rye Whiskey" in DGD tuning in Simply Old Time Dulcimer, his 29-tune book of old-time music in traditional dulcimer tablature, published by Pedi and sold with an MP3 recording of each tune.[8]

Our book that contains the song "Rye Whiskey"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index (Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle): "Rye Whiskey".
  2. Southern Cultures (Michael McFee): "Rye Whisky".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UC Santa Barbara Library): "OKeh 45032 (10-in. double-faced)".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UC Santa Barbara Library): "Victor 21470 (Black label (popular) 10-in. double-faced)".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UC Santa Barbara Library): "ARC matrix 13158. Rye whiskey, rye whiskey / Tex Ritter".
  6. Alan Lomax Kentucky Recordings (Berea College, University of Kentucky Libraries, American Folklife Center): "Rye Whiskey" (Lee Skeens, 1937).
  7. Alan Lomax Kentucky Recordings (Berea College, University of Kentucky Libraries, American Folklife Center): "Rye Whiskey" (Fort Thomas, 1938).
  8. Don Pedi: "Simply Old Time Dulcimer".
  9. Image: George Manjoy, Miniature whiskey still, silver, 1685–86. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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