Earlier this year, I did a couple of connected posts about John I. White (1902-1992). White was the editor of a popular history book I'd been looking for and finally found through the statewide library system. This volume, American Vignettes, was so interesting that I looked up information on editor White. Turns out he'd been a performer in the earliest days of radio, where he was known as The Lonesome Cowboy. The post about all of that can be found HERE.
As I researched a bit more, I discovered that John I. White had written a whole book about the tradition of singing cowboys, including some of his personal experiences singing on the radio. That book, Git Along Lil Dogies, was also available from our state library system and I wrote the follow-up blog post about it. You can find that one HERE
Once I brought home my checked-out copy of Git Along Lil Dogies (published in 1975), I discovered a never-played flexible record inside the back cover. It was a recording of the original Lonesome Cowboy performing the title song from his book! I have a USB record player so I could convert the record to an mp3 and I put the song on YouTube.
"Git Along Lil Dogies" appears in the 1902 novel The Virginian (adapted later into a popular TV series). The book is out of copyright these days and so a Librivox volunteer has read it for us on YouTube.
Folklorist John Lomax (father of Alan) included "Git Along" in this collection.
"Dogies" are small calves with big bellies. They are either orphans or runts (underfed by the mother). Click here to see a short video of a runt calf in with regular size calves.
I wondered why the calves were going to Wyoming, but I think it just fit the rhythm of the song. Apparently in other versions, Montana will be the new home for the baby cows.
Bobbing or docking the tails of dairy cows was once done so the tails wouldn't hit the farmer milking the cow and because some vets felt the tail was dirty with barn muck and would spread disease. In modern practice, it's recognized that cows need their whisk-tipped tails to keep flies away. Also, tail-docking is done for milk cows and the herd in the song is made up of beef cattle.
Learning the Houlihan? That meant doing this cool move with a rope:
The song "Git Along Lil Dogies" is also called "Whoopi-Yi-Ti-Yo," and I wonder what the overlap is between that and a Native American peyote song musician Jim Pepper learned from his grandfather, a cover version of which became a radio hit in the late 1960s.
Bonus(?): Alvin and the Chipmunks climb onto David Seville's sawhorses and sing "Git Along Lil Dogies."
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