Judge Parker
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Judge Parker" also known as "Old Judge Parker", "Judge Parker Take These Shackles<br> Off of Me", "Take the Shackles Off" or "Take Your Shackles Off of Me"<br> is an American reel in cut time and G Major. The parts are played AABB (Thede) or<br> AA'BB' (Beisswenger & McCann).<br> The infamous "Hanging Judge" Isaac Charles Parker, of Fort Smith, Arkansas,<br> in the twenty-one years between 1875 and 1896 sentenced 164 men to the gallows.<br> A United States District Judge for part of Arkansas and about 70,000 square miles<br> of untamed land to the west (at that time including the Indian Territory which<br> later became the state of Oklahoma), his was the sole court for the region until<br> 1889, when it became possible to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.<br> The Parker name became iconic for judges and was used frequently to represent<br> hard justice; thus the tune title probably does not refer to Isaac Parker himself,<br> with the plea "Judge Parker, Take These Shackles Off of Me" being condensed to<br> "Judge Parker". <br> As with many American fiddle tunes, variants are sometimes quite distanced from<br> one another. The first strain of Dick Hutchison's blues-tinged version (see<br> Milliner-Koken) is similar to the second strain of Frank Maloy's version<br> (Devil's Box), but the other strains diverge.<br> The banjo tablature is by John Letscher. His comment:<br> First heard from Tom, Brad and Alice. Just a little crooked, but interestingly so.<br> It was printed in Beisswenger & McCann's Ozarks Fiddle Tunes (2008)<br> (appears as "Old Judge Parker"),<br> Milliner & Koken's Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011)<br> (appears as "Judge Parker, Take These Shackles Off of Me") and<br> Thede's The Fiddle Book (1967).<br> It was recorded by Tom, Brad & Alice on We'll Die in the Pig Pen Fighting,<br> Lymon Enloe on Fiddle Tunes I Recall (1977),<br> Uncle Dick Hutchinson on Sharecropper's Blues (2015),<br> Dick Hutchinson on More Old Time Fiddlin' (1969),<br> Noel Scott on Traditional Fiddle Music of the Ozarks, vol. 3: Down in the<br> Border Counties (2000), and<br> Bill Northcutt on Front Porch Fiddling (1973).<br>
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