Our TOTW presenter needed to trade dates, so here’s a seasonal tune to coincide with nature right now -- Shaking Down the Acorns. In the California Sierra Foothills the local Blue Oak acorns have started to fall right outside the house. They seem to grow in four year cycles, with every fourth year being the most plentiful.
The tune Shaking Down (or Off) the Acorns has got to be the epitome of the great West Virginia tune. It’s modal; its mood is rural, native, and historic; and it’s been recorded a multiple of times by accomplished old-time players of West Virginia and elsewhere. The source recordings are of the Hammons Family, with two versions differing in the B part. I heard Adam Hurt's version and just had to learn it.
The one we hear most is from Edden Hammons. Today, September 7thwould have been his 113thbirthday. Though he called it Shaking Off the Acorns, it’s known as Shaking Down the Acorns. When Edden’s nephew, Burl Hammons, recorded Shaking Down the Acorns, he sourced a neighbor, Uncle Nige Cogar, of Pocahontas County, WV. It’s slightly different. You can hear Carl Baron playing it below, and his tab is in the BHO Tab Archives. I haven’t found Burl’s version anywhere else, except on Hammons Family recordings. Burl Hammon's photo is the second one. Dwight Diller and Alan Jabbour recorded him extensively.
If you’re like me and attach meaning to tune titles, there’s a book for anyone truly interested in how Native Americans used and processed acorns called It Will Live Forever by Bev Ortiz. I’ve tried the more modern method to leach and grind them as explained in the book and was grateful it was much easier than in the old days. Indian women worked hard to create a daily morning meal from acorns, grinding them in rocks and leaching them in streams. Storing them was essential for winter survival and several methods were used. At our annual Pioneer Day in Smartsville we have an “acorn lady,” Carolyn Jones-Rogers who sits with kids and shows them how to grind the acorns and provides us with yummy acorn cookies, too.
If you check out this link, it tells how Pomo Indian boys would climb the oak trees to shake down the acorns and what the woman did with them: Film review describing acorn gathering
Hope you enjoy the Tune of the Week and share your own or your favorite version, as there are many out there.
I love this tune and, in fact, I just might know someone who named her iPhone personal hotspot after it. :) Funny thing is, I don't think I've ever tried playing it on banjo. I will remedy that soon! Nice choice with so many wonderful examples. Thanks!
I'm so glad you recorded, Brad. Old Woodchuck is missed around here. Maybe he'll see the fruit of his Rocket Science Banjo instructional series here, still recommended as a good learning tool.
This is a simplified arrangement of what I learned from Dwight Diller. Fits in with his fiddle version above. To be played with a lot of swing and not a lot of speed.
Excellent post, Andrew. Encore! Your Dwight Diller arrangement very much resembles Burl Hammond’s, which must be where he learned it, as they were good friends.
I'm so glad you recorded, Brad. Old Woodchuck is missed around here. Maybe he'll see the fruit of his Rocket Science Banjo instructional series here, still recommended as a good learning tool.
Thanks, Janet. I believe Woodchuck is still around, just not as active as he used to be. I am the so-called "webmaster" of his RSB site, but haven't heard from him lately. I also had previously put a bunch of his stuff on my pricklypearmusic.net site. Some good stuff there that augments his webpage.
Years ago, Diller took me to visit the grave site of Edn Hammons. It was in October, so the acorns had been falling, and were thick on top of Edn's grave.
Of course I thought of his signature tune, and took a picture. For some reason I got an error when I tried to upload the picture, so don't know if it attached here or not. If not, the picture is on my BHO home page photo album if someone wants to look at it.
I like this tune a lot, but have yet to tackle it. I sure enjoyed all the videos!
Really great photo, Andy! Because of the acorn connection, I'm reminded of the Hammons family story about first living in Kentucky, but getting ran out by unfriendly Indians. Here's a summary of it, with the source found in The Hammons Family, A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions, beginning on page 7. Maggie Hammons (1899 – 1987) and her brother, Burl, relate how their great-grandfather’s family was in Kentucky, but had to escape the "Indian Nation" around Whitley, Kentucky. There were only two white families and they’d been befriended by an old Indian and his grandson. During one if his many visits, the old Indian shared a dream about receiving the white man's gun and said that Indian dreams always came true. Out of fear Mr. Hammons gave him the gun, but later concocted a dream of his own that he was to receive back his gun, as well as a pony. So the old Indian had to give it back along with a pony. When the Indian continued visiting, his troubling silence finally became a confession that the Indian tribe was going to plan a massacre against them. The two families rapidly left Kentucky and went to West Virginia.
I like what the old Indian said when he returned the rifle.
"White man, dream no more"
I love listening to older folks tell the stories they have from their lifetime. The stories that survive from one generation to another by being passed down, much in the same way music is passed down, are like a living thing to me.
We can't sit on the porch with Maggie nowadays, but many of her stories, and those from others in the family, have been preserved for us, and listening to these is as close as we can come to a visit on the porch.
The "Across the Yewpines" DVD series, which can be found on Dwight Dillers website, has several of these stories being told by members of the Hammons family. My favorite is Maggie telling of "Cripple Foot" the bear.
Anyone who attended some of the later Dwight Diller banjo camps may have noticed a sketch named "Shaking Down the Acorns" on the wall of the lodge. This sketch has Edn playing fiddle underneath the huge oak tree at his grave site, with Maggie, her sister, Burl, Sherman, and also Lee Hammons, further down the path. There are acorns falling, and rolling down this path to where Dwight is sitting playing a banjo.
This sketch was something I dreamed up as a gift to Dwight to show my appreciation for his life's work, and to recognize the way the tunes , represented by acorns, have came down the path to later generations through people like Dwight. It was drawn by my brother.
When it was finished I did have some smaller copies of the original made, I gave some of these to Dwight which he provided to a students who wanted one, and I kept a few for the same purpose. This was almost a decade ago, so don't know if I have any left.
The original is a fairly large drawing. I have a full size framed copy on the wall of my den.
If I can find the disc, I have the drawing as a digital image, which would be the easiest way to send you one. I am not one of those "organized" people, so finding something I had a decade ago is usually a challenge, but I am sure I put it somewhere "safe", and my wife has probably moved it somewhere she thinks is safer, and it is a good bet neither one of us will remember where that place is.
