Annotation:Shout Lulu

---

X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x

---

SHOUT LULU. AKA – “Shout Little Lulu,” "Shout Lula," "Shout Lou," "Shout Old Lulu." AKA and see "Hook and Line," ”Roustabout.” American, Song tune and reel. USA; east Tenn., southwestern Va., north Georgia, north Carolina, Ohio. G Major. GDad tuning (fiddle). AABB. Art Rosenbaum (1989) says "this song is much more current in the tradition than its absence from printed collections would suggest." "Shout Lulu" is a driving banjo piece and dance tune that goes by a variety of titles, including “Hook and Line,” “Banjo Sam,” “Fish on a Hook,” and others (see note for “annotation:Hook and Line”). Mike Yates (2002) suggests it may have derived from an early minstrel tune called “My Old Dad.” It was the repertoires of Dock Boggs and John Dykes (of the Dykes Magic City Trio) under the title "Hook and Line," while Hobart Smith fiddled it as “Katy Went Fishing with Her Hook and Line,” and said “It’s a real old piece, handed down from my fathers.” Rufus Crisp, Woody Wachtel, Roscoe Holcomb, Pete Steele, Ralph Stanley, and Fiddlin' Cowan Powers 1877 1952? (Russell County, southwest Va.) played it as well as Uncle John Patterson (Carroll County, Ga.), a sometimes Skillet Lickers hanger on who learned to pick the tune on the banjo "on his mother's {champion banjoist Bessie Patterson} lap when he was three years old" (Rosenbaum). The words are risqué:

When I get sick and I have to go to bed,
Send for Lulu to hold my head.
Shout, Lulu, shout, Lulu, shout, shout.

Shout, little Lulu, sing and pray,
You gonna die some rainy day,
Shout, Lulu, shout, Lulu, shout, shout.

Shout, little Luly, shout your best,
Your old grandma's gone west!
Shout, Lulu, shout, Lulu shout, shout.

How many nickels will it take
To see little Lulu's body shake?
Two little nickels and a dime,
We'll see little Lulu shake and shine.
Shout, Lulu, shout, Lulu, shout, shout.

Shout little Lulu, shout your best,
Granny's got her head in a hornet's nest,
Shout, Lulu, shout, shout, Shout Lulu, shout, shout. ... [Rosenbaum/Bruce]