Tom and Jerry
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Tom and Jerry" is an old-time, Texas style breakdown in A Major known in Missouri, Arkansas,<br> Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and Arizona. The parts are played AABB. It is often<br> played in AEae tuning.<br> The first famous association of the two names together was in the early years of the 19th<br> century in a book called Life in London (1820-1821), by Pierce Egan (1772-1849). It features<br> the characters of a young country squire, Jerry Hawthorne who is shown about town by his elegant<br> cousin, Corinthian Tom and Bob Logic, as rakes in Regency England who mis-adventured among<br> upper-class society. Due to the influence of the book, a ‘Tom and Jerry’ came to refer to a low<br> drinking house in the Regency Period in England and further referred to fighting, drinking and<br> causing trouble (as in “we had a real Tom and Jerry that night”).<br> Arizona fiddler Kenner Kartchner said the tune was from the South and difficult to play in standard<br> tuning. It is known as a Missouri piece and appears to be associated more with states<br> west of the Mississippi River than with the Appalachians and the Deep South. The tune was recorded for<br> the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph from the playing of Ozark Mountain<br> fiddlers in the early 1940's and by Herbert Halpert in 1939. Meade (2002) lists early recordings by<br> Uncle Dave Macon (1927) and the Log Cabin Fiddlers (1929).<br> The melody has become a flashy and elaborate standard at fiddle contests in modern times.<br> It was printed in Beisswenger & McCann's Ozarks Fiddle Music (2008),<br> Christeson's Old Time Fiddlers Repertory, vol. 1 (1973),<br> Brody's Fiddler’s Fakebook (1983),<br> Thede's The Fiddle Book (1967) and<br> Howe’s Musician’s Omnibus (1864). <br> It was recorded by Herman Johnson on Champion Fiddling,<br> Major Franklin on Texas Fiddle Favorites,<br> Benny Thomasson (Texas) on Country Fiddling,<br> John Ashby on Old Virginia Fiddling,<br> Leftwich & Higginbotham on No One to Bring Home Tonight (1984),<br> The Dillards with Byron Berline on Pickin' and Fiddlin',<br> Taylor McBaine on Boone County Fiddler,<br> Lymon Enloe,<br> Mark O'Conner on Pickin' in the Wind and<br> The Wildcats on On Our Knees (1992).<br>
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