"Pretty Betty Martin", also known as "Tip Toe Pretty Betty Martin", "High Betty Martin",
"Tip Toe Fine", "Very Pretty Martin", "Betty Martin",
"Fire on the Mountain",
"Granny Will Your Dog Bite?",
"Old Mother Gofour" or "Hog Eye" is an old-time breakdown
from Kentucky in A Major. The tune is also used in play-party tradition. Jean Ritchie played a
simplified version on the dulcimer in C major. The version shown here is an A major version
from Ford's Traditional Music in America (1940).
Jeff Titon (2001) suggests that “High Betty Martin” was the original title for the tune and
that “Fire on the Mountain” (the most well-known title today) originally went to another group
of tunes that included “Granny Will Your Dog Bite?”
It was collected from Hiram Stamper of Hindman, Knott County, Kentucky who played a three part version in 2/4 time using AEae tuning on the fiddle that was crooked in all three parts: 19 measures in part A, 20 measures in part B and 4 measures in part C. It was printed in Titon's Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001), Bayard's Dance to the Fiddle (1981), Jean Ritchie's The Dulcimer Book (1963), Ford's Traditional Music in America (1940), American Folk Songs for Children (1948), Vance's American Songbag (1955), Botkin's New England Folk Lore (1944) and Kuntz's Fiddler's Companion website http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc/. It was recorded by Peggy Seeger and Mike Seeger on American Folk Songs for Children. |