This is one of the many tune known by the name “Polly Put the Kettle On”. This is the version that they play in Texas, Oklahoma, and Southern Missouri. There is also a French Canadian tune that Donna Hebert played for me once that has a very similar melody, but I don’t remember the name of it off hand. According to my research, this tune is also known as Granny will your dog bite.
I learned this tune from Junior Marriott at the American Heritage Music Festival at Grand Lake of the Ozarks in Grove, Oklahoma AKA the Jana Jae Fiddle Contest.
The simpler version of the B part that I played the first couple of times around, I learned from the Solomon Family Fiddling album that I bought at CountySales.com a while back.
It is a fairly simple tune without a lot of notes, but it has a catchy melody and it’s a lot of fun to play, especially the bow bouncing part. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoy playing it.
Polly Put the Kettle On (This Version) According to the Fiddler’s Companion
POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON [2]. AKA and see “Molly Put the Kettle On [1],” “Granny Will Your Dog Bite?” Old‑Time, Breakdown. USA; east Tennessee, western N.C., north Ga. G Major (with flat 7th) {Ford}: D Major {Silberberg, Spandaro}. Standard tuning. ABC (Silberberg): AABB (Ford, Spandaro). Identified as a common East Tennessee tune. The tune was played by Wiley Harper (Monroe, Ga.) in an April, 1913, Atlanta, Ga. fiddlers’ contest, according to the newspaper the Atlanta Journal.
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Polly, put the kettle on and slice the bread and butter fine.
Slice enough for eight or nine, we’ll all have tea. (Ford).
More info from the Fiddler’s Companion on Granny Will your Dog Bite
GRANNY, WILL YOUR DOG BITE? [1]. AKA and see “Betty Martin,” “Boating Up Sandy [3],” “Brad Walters,” “Chippy/Gippy Get Your Haircut,” “Hog Eye an’ a ‘Tater,” “The Hog Eye Man,” “Hog Eye [1],” “Jake Gilly/Gillie,” “Old Mother Gofour,” “Old Granny Rattle-Trap,” “Pretty Betty Martin,” “Very Pretty Martin,” “Sally in the Garden [1],” “Tip Toe Fine,” “Fire on/in the Mountain [1].” Old‑Time, Breakdown. USA; Kentucky, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma. A Major/Mixolydian (most versions): D Major (Sweet). Standard or AEae (e.g. Lon Jordan). AB (Silberberg): AA’B (Beisswenger & McCann): AABB (Christeson, Phillips, Sweet): AABBC (Thede). This melody is popular under several titles, however, the title itself “Granny Will Your Dog Bite” is also a floating title attached to several tunes. It was frequently played at Mid-Western fiddle contests. R.P. Christeson says his version is dissimilar to the tune of the same title in Ford (1940), but is similar to “Tip Toe, Pretty Betty Martin” in the same book. Bayard (1981) notes the resemblance between this tune and the “Betty Martin” variants, many listed as alternates above. He believes the tune possibly has Norwegian connections (though he did not elaborate or offer sustaining information). The tune was recorded for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph from Ozark Mountain fiddlers in the early 1940′s (in particular from Arkansas fiddler Lon Jordan, in 1941), and was recorded commercially by Crockett’s Kentucky Mountaineers in 1928. See also related tunes “Gate to Go Through” and “Old Coon Dog [2].” Ford (1940) said that “occasional verses” were sung by fiddlers while playing the tune, and indeed, various verses have been collected from both white and black sources. (Ford’s collection area was the Mid-West, often Missouri, and Thede printed Oklahoma versions). Charles Wolfe (1991) remarks the tune has been collected widely from Mississippi to California, and notes that Ray Browne (writing in The Alabama Folk Lyric, 445) heard it often as a banjo tune popular more with blacks than whites.
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Granny will your dog bite, cow kick, cat scratch?
Granny will your hen peck, sow root the corn patch?
Granny will your duck quack, old grey goose hatch?
Granny will your dog bite? “Yes, child, No!” (Ford)
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Granny will your hen peck, hen peck, hen peck,
Granny will your hen peck, Lord, child, no;
Hog bit ‘er pecker off a long time ago. (Thede)
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Granny will your dog bite, dog bite, dog bite,
Granny will your dog bite , Lord, child no;
Wolf bit ‘er biter off long time ago.
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African-American collector Thomas Talley, in his Negro Folk Rhymes (edited in a new edition by Charles Wolfe in 1991) printed lyrics under the title “Chicken in the Bread Tray.” They go:
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Auntie, will yo dog bite?
No, Chile, No!
Chicken in the bread tray
A makin’ up dough
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Auntie, will yo broom hit?
Yes, Chile, Pop!
Chicken in the bread tray,
Flop, Flop, Flop!
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Auntie, will you oven bake?
Yes, Jes fry!
What’s dat chicken good fer?
Pie, Pie, Pie!
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Auntie, is yo pie good?
Good as you could ‘spec,
Chicken in the bread tray;
Peck, Peck, Peck!
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Bruce Baker found the following reference in the North Carolina State Archives (Raleigh, N.C.) in the Lowry Shuford Collection in a folder marked “Civil War
Reminiscences.” The folder contains a document titled “From 1861 to 1865 As I Remember” by J. A. Bush, Sr., of Lenoir, N.C., wherein he writes:
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D. A. Griffin was one of them (i.e. the musicians). When he came to
Lenoir to be sworn in, he was playing on his fife, ‘Oh, Granny, will
your little dog bite? No, child, no.’ He took his fife to camp with him
and played every evening.
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Baker concludes that, while there is no way of knowing which of the “Granny” tunes was the one Griffin played, the reference it “does suggest the tune was playable on a fife and that this floating lyric was floating around Caldwell Co., N.C., in the early 1860s.”
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