Annotation:Judge Parker

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 JUDGE PARKER. AKA - "Old Judge Parker." AKA and see "Take the Shackles Off," "Take Your Shackles Off of Me." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Oklahoma. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Thede): AA'BB' (Beisswenger & McCann). The infamous "Hanging Judge," Isaac Charles Parker, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the twenty-one years between 1875 and 1896 sentenced 164 men to the gallows. A United States District Judge for part of Arkansas and about 70,000 square miles of untamed land to the west (at that time including the Indian Territory which later became the state of Oklahoma), his was the sole court for the region until 1889, when it became possible to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.  Sources for notated versions: Billy Foust (Woodward County, Oklahoma) [Thede]; Missouri fiddler Lymon Enloe (1921-1997) [Beisswenger & McCann].  Printed sources: Beisswenger & McCann (Ozarks Fiddle Tunes), 2008; p. 29 (appears as "Old Judge Parker"). Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; p. 103.  Recorded sources: Copper Creek CCCD-0196, Tom, Brad & Alice - "We'll Die in the Pig Pen Fighting." County 762, Lymon Enloe - "Fiddle Tunes I Recall." Rounder 0437, Noel Scott - "Traditional Fiddle Music of the Ozarks, vol. 3: Down in the Border Counties."  See also listings at: Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources

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