Step to the Music, Johnny
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Step to the Music, Johnny" is in John LaMancusa's web collection where he attributes it to<br> Bruce Green, a collector and player of old-time music of Kentucky. I have not found it<br> listed on any of Green's CDs.<br> The tune is a reel in D major. The parts are played AABB.<br> The banjo arrangement is by John Letscher.<br> "Step To The Music, Johnny" is an obscure tune. It was printed in Ira W. Ford’s<br> Traditional Music of America (1940). Ford provided not only the tune, but in this case,<br> the oral tradition handed down with it:<br> During the Civil War, a foraging party of Northern troops came upon a dance attended<br> by a large body of Confederate soldiers. Surrounding the place and taking them by<br> surprise, the invaders captured the Southerners without a shot being fired. The fiddler,<br> not a soldier although a strong Southern sympathizer, became somewhat sarcastic in his<br> remarks to the Northerners, so they decided to take him along with the other prisoners.<br> One of the Yankees conceived the idea of having the fiddler play a lively tune to march<br> by on their way back to the Northern lines. So, at the bayonet’s point, the fiddler<br> obeyed. From time to time the Yankees would yell: 'Step to the music, Johnny!' which<br> subsequently became the accepted name for this tune.<br> It was recorded by Jim Taylor and Friends on The Civil War Collection Volume Two (2001).<br>
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