Ida Red
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
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Standard Notation
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Song Sheet
American
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Transcription: 07/03/2022 00:34:51 by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
Floating verses sung to Ida Red:
Down the road, down the road;
Can't get a letter from down the road.
Down the road, across the creek,
Can't get a letter but once a week.
Ida Red and Ida Blue,
I got stuck on Ida too.
Ida Red, she lives in town,
She weighs three hundred and forty pounds.
Ida Red, she won't do right,
She won't do nothing but quarell and fight.
Down the road a mile and half,
My little honey looks back and laughs.
Down the road and across the creek,
Can't get a letter but once a week.
Ida Red, she's a darned old fool,
Tried to put a saddle on a hump-back mule.
"Ida Red", also known as "Idy Red" is an American reel in 2/4 or cut time in A Major
(Kuntz, Milliner/Koken, Phillips) or G Major (Krassen, Milliner/Koken, Titon).
It is played in AEae or standard fiddle tuning. The parts are played AB, AAB or AABB
(Krassen). Some players like to reverse the parts and play BA or BBAA.
"Ida Red" is a melody widespread throughout the South and Mid-West, in both purely
instrumental versions and versions with words.
The words are usually a casual collection of
floater verses to amuse the band while the dancers complete their figures. For that reason,
I have included it in the Tunes section instead of the Songs section.
The character 'Ida Red' is the subject
of a somber song in Alan Lomax's collection American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934),
in a section of 'Negro Bad Men', collected from an informant at a Texas prison farm.
However, it has no relation to the "Ida Red" of the various fiddle tune couplets whose
gender is feminine or androgynous and often comic. Jeff Titon (2001)
believes the lyrics suggest an African-American or minstrel origin, but no direct
antecedents have surfaced to date.
The "Ida Red" tunes as a group vary widely in their melodic content even within
geographic regions, although nearly all versions retain the distinctive cadence, with
the majority played in 'A' major, often 'cross-tuned' (i.e.: AEae fiddle tuning).
It was recorded for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph
from Ozarks Mountains fiddlers in the early 1940's. Riley Pucket's (north Georgia)
version of the tune, released in 1926, became the second best-selling country music
record for the year.
The banjo tablature is from John Letscher.
It was printed in The Devil's Box, vol. 9, no. 1 (1975),
Kaufman's Beginning Old Time Fiddle (1977),
Krassen's Appalachian Fiddle (1973),
Kuntz's Ragged but Right (1987),
Milliner & Koken's Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011)
(five versions),
Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1 (1994) (two versions),
Thede's The Fiddle Book (1967) and
Titon's Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001).
It was recorded by Dykes Magic City Trio (1927),
Tommy Jarrell on Rainbow Sign (1986),
Clayton McMichen on McMichen: The Traditional Years (1977),
Double Decker String Band on Giddyap Napoleon,
Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers (1934),
Tweedy Brothers (1928),
Jim Bowles on Railroading Through the Rocky Mountains (1994),
Ernest V. Stoneman on Ernest Stoneman and the Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers (1978),
Ed Haley on Forked Deer (1997),
Pete Seeger on American Favorite Ballads: Songs and Tunes, Vol. 5 (1962),
The Red Mules on The Marimac Anthology: Deep in Old-Time Music,
Fiddlin' Powers & Family (1924) and
The Hoover Uprights on Known by their Reputation (2005).
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