Little Brown Jug

A 2/4 dance tune in D major, this is the instrumental fiddle rendering of a minstrel-stage song attributed to “Eastburn,” believed to be a pseudonym for Joseph E. Winner (1837–1918), which passed into broad Old Time circulation under the familiar title. It was known across a wide geographic range — played at country dances in Orange County, New York in the 1930s, collected from Ozark fiddlers by Vance Randolph for the Library of Congress in the early 1940s, and recorded by West Virginia fiddler Clark Kessinger (1896–1975) on 78 RPM.Curator’s note: The Ira Ford version is in C major.