Don Borchelt - Posted - 09/26/2014:  07:37:57

You can keep your fancy jazz licks,

your record setting banjo duels,

your oddly crooked tunes in mixo-frumpian mode,

what really sets the men apart from the boys (so to speak),

is the ability to make your banjo sound like a chicken.



- anonymous banjo philosopher

Okay, I admit, the above quote is my own, from the original post for Chicken Reel, the Tune of the Week for May 3, 2013.  A year and a half has gone by since then, a very long time measured in the attention span of us banjo players, and after much thought I have had to revise my thinking on this.  Yes, I'm afraid I have to expand my statement to include other animals besides chickens.  This particular musical epiphany came to me when I recently worked up Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase on the banjo, my offering for the Tune of the Week.   Making hound dog noises on the banjo is just plain sweet.



This tune comes to us from old-time fiddler Dudley "Dud" Vance (1880–1962), of Bluff City, Washington County,Tennessee, up in the northeast corner of the state near the border with North Carolina.  In May, 1925, when Vance was 45 years old,and already a successful contest fiddler, he went a few miles up the road to participate in the now legendary competition  at the inaugural Mountain City Fiddler's Convention in Mountain City, Tennessee.  Sponsored by the local Klue Klux Klan (yeah, them guys), the event lured many of the best southern fiddlers of the day, including Charlie Bowman, Uncle Am Stuart, John Carson, Lonnie Durham, G.B. Grayson, Clarence Ashley, Al Hopkins, and Fiddlin' Cowen Powers.  Vance came in first place, fiddling Twinkle Little Star.  The picture below shows the convention participants; Dudley Vance is the short fellow in the back row, almost hidden by his fellow competitors.  If you click on the image, you will see a larger image with a key identifying the individual musicians.

Two years after the contest, in September, 1927, perhaps inspired by the financial success of many of his Mountain City competitors, Vance traveled over the mountains to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his brother Sam Vance and banjo player Will McNamara, to record six sides for the Okeh record label, as Vance's Tennessee Breakdowners.  Only two of the six sides would be pressed, but the Vance family held onto the original pressings, including the recording of Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase, and would years later share them with a number of revival record labels, including County and Rural Rhythm.  Ultimately, they would be included on various composite albums issued in the 1970s.   Vance would never again make a commercial recording.  He spent his later years operating a music park and resort in East Tennessee.  You can hear Vance's Tennessee Breakdowners play Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase (sometimes Vance called it the Washington County Fox Chase) by clicking on the link.

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase played by Vance's Tennessee Breakdowners

Sometime between 1930 and 1932, Dudley Vance crossed paths with the legendary American artist and muralist Thomas Hart Benton, who would sketch Vance in ink and pencil while he played his fiddle.  It is said that Benton later used Vance as the inspiration for a fiddler in a panel painted for the library of the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City.  

It is really not surprising that an old tie fiddler like Dudley Vance would record an homage to fox hunting.  To a dedicated mountain man, his hound dogs are about as much a part of his family as his children.  Of course, they don't just chase down foxes; bears, raccoons, turkeys, possums, anything small you could skin and eat (and maybe make a banjo head out of) are also fair game.  A smart hound dog that could tree a coon or grey fox was as prized as a good fiddle or banjo.

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase is a three part, slightly crooked tune in the key of C, a key many of us- myself included- seem to neglect.  I have been working over the last year or so with a fiddling friend of mine, John Rettick, to expand my limited reperoire of C tunes, and this is one of the first we tackled.  I have attached a video of my three-finger-style version, set in double C tuning.   For anyone who might be interested, I have a tab posted on my website.  You can access a pdf file of my transcription of the fiddle melody by clicking here.  Although I rarely play clawhammer anymore, I have added a clawhammer track to the Tabledit (tef) tablature file on my website, or you can look at the pdf file by clicking here.



There are three great versions in the BHO MP3 archive.  The first is by Dave Arthur,Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdon, which comes from his Rattle on the Stovepipe CD.  The second is by Dan Hayes (hayesdt), Canandaigua Falls, New York, uploaded in May, 2012.  Dan in his note suggests that the first part of the tune represents the release of the fox, the second, of course, the dogs chasing the fox, and the thrid part the cornering of the fox.  The last is by the old dog himself, Carl Baron (carlb), Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, uploaded in December, 2011.  I can hear them barking at his heels, for sure.

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase-Dave Arthur

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase-Dan Hayes

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase-Carl Baron

I would be remiss if I didn't include a special MP3 from the BHO's sister site, the Fiddle Hangout.  The first is by Doug Dorshug, Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, downloaded in August, 2008.  Doug is doing the banjo picking, with Red Vance, Dudley Vance's son, playing the fiddle, and Ed Snodderly playing guitar.

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase-Doug Dorschug

There are a great number of Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase videos uploaded to YouTube; I have picked four to embed which I thought were of special interest: 

First, Ken Perlman and Dave Para, from the 2011 Midwest Banjo Camp Faculty Concert in Olivet, Michigan, uploaded in October, 2011.

Second, the Dust Busters appearing on Knoxville's WDVX's Blue Plate Special, uploaded in November, 2011.  The Dustbusters, now disbanded,  included Craig Judelman on fiddle, Walker Shepard on banjo, and Eli Smith on guitar.

Third, the Danish band Big Hungry Joe, playing a gig at the music library in Gladsaxe, Denmark, uploaded in February, 2012. Joe's members are Peter Lorichs on banjo, Jesper Deleuran on guitar. Mathias Enevoldsen on bass, Lasse Høi harmonica and Tobias Enevoldsen on fiddle. 

Last but not least, of course, the incomparable Freight Hoppers, at the Morehead Old Time Music Festival in Morehead, Kentucky,  July, 2012.  In this configuration, they are David Bass on fiddle, Frank Lee on the banjo, Isaac Deal on guitar, and Bradley Adams on the bass.

So even if you are like me, and you don't own a pack of hounds and don't go off in the evening running all over the mountain chasing down critters, you can still get into the spirit of the thing and show us that you can make your banjer bark.  And if you do happen to be an old (or young) Piedmont fox hunter, and want to share a story or picture of your prized Plott or Walker or whatever he or she may be, well, that would also be very welcomed and appreciated. 

Time to run with the big dogs.

- Don Borchelt

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 09/26/2014 13:56:20

VIDEO: Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase (click to view)

mworden - Posted - 09/26/2014:  08:49:45

Don, great choice and nice playing.  It's one of the few C tunes in my repertoire and the only tune I play where I consistently want to fret the 5th string (in the B part).  I can play it behind a fiddle but I'm not sure if I can make it work as a stand-alone banjo piece or not (gonna try).  When it comes around in a jam in these parts, someone is guaranteed to start howling and barking during the B part.

One of my favorite recordings is from the McCrae Sisters (cdbaby.com/cd/macraesisters).  

Don Borchelt - Posted - 09/26/2014:  13:37:19

Thanks Mike.  I haven't played much clawhammer in awhile, but I worked up an arrangement and added it to the Tabledit (tef) file on my website.  You can look at it in pdf format by clicking here.  I'm sure you clawhammer guys can improve on it.  I do really like the take on it from the clawhammerers like Dan, Carl, and the others I linked to above, but I didn't feel it proper to tab any of them out.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 09/28/2014:  08:05:02

This is definitely not the Tennessee Mountain Fix Chase per se, but it's highly influenced by it. This combination of storytelling and singing incorporates a "fox chase" section from around 3:40 to 7:10 with barking dogs, running water and hunting horn sounds as part of it.

(I hadn't watched this video for a while. When I was checking it for the time stamps, I was surprised at the low recording quality. I have much better video recording equipment now. I should record this one again.)

VIDEO: The Fox - 1929 Whyte Laydie Banjo - Marc Nerenberg (click to view)

Hoss - Posted - 09/28/2014:  12:01:11

Thanks Don! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading, listening and watching through everything you've posted on this TOTW. I was not familiar with the tune but it is now firmly stuck in my head and on its way to becoming part of my repertoire.

JanetB - Posted - 09/28/2014:  15:02:12

Lots of fun here, Don.  Your banjo was bawling and wailing--a real hound chase.

I'm including a photo of our Plott hound, Jesse.  She adopted this piglet when the little runt was having trouble competing with the many other babies--some with the stripes of wild boar piglets.  Our Plotts hunted bear, wild boar, mountain lion, and raccoons.  And sometimes deer or coyotes and even skunk, but then they were "trashing."  Jesse's father, old Ike, never ran trash.  He was a dog you could brag on.

I listened to Dudley Vance and found an anecdote in Thomas Hart Benton's book about his life.  He quoted Vance as saying that records "wuz never right" and "wuz a time when I'd cross bows with any fiddler from here to Florida."  I tried to imagine the 3-part hunt, a suggested.  The B part strongly reminds me of part of The Chieftains version of The Fox Hunt where the hounds are running and barking.

Edited by - JanetB on 09/28/2014 15:13:40

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase (TOTW)

Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase (CH) tab

Plott hound Jesse and the adopted piglet