Annotation:Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Around
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GOTTA QUIT KICKIN' MY DOG AROUND. AKA and see "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land." Old-Time, (Slow) Breakdown. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). The Skillet Lickers (in the configuration of Gid Tanner and Clayton McMichen on fiddles, Riley Pucket on guitar and vocals, and Fate Norris on banjo) recorded the song in Atlanta on April 17th, 1926, one of eight sides for Columbia records. There version was a fairly down-tempo song with instrumental breaks [1], complete with hound-dog howls. Wayne W. Daniel (in his book Pickin' on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia, 1990) opines:
The output from this historic recording session makes for a rather unimpressive list of what even there were long-familiar tunes and songs: "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," "Bully of the Town," "Pass Around the Bottle and We'll All Take a Drink," "Alabama Jubilee," "Watermelon on the Vine," "Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan," "Ya Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Aroun'," and "Turkey in the Straw."
"Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Around" was the campaign song in 1912 chosen by Champ Clark, Speaker of the House, in his Primary run for the Democratic nomination for President. He was defeated by Woodrow Wilson, but not until the forty-sixth ballot [Thede].
The lyric begins:
Every Time I come to town
Somebody goes to kickin' my dog around,
Makes no difference if its a hound
You gotta quit a-kickin' my dog around.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; p. 81.
Recorded sources: Columbia A-1150 (78 RPM), The Skillet Lickers (1926).
See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]
Hear The Skillet Lickers version at the Internet Archive [3]