Burgin Mathews is a writer and teacher in Birmingham, Alabama.
Lady Muleskinner is an independent, living-room press and the publisher of Singing Governors, Fiddling Senators, and Other Country-Music Politicians, as well as of other eventual short works. (Note: See “Cheap Buys” for subsequent publications.)
Ladymuleskinnerpress.com is the internet home of writings by Burgin Mathews.
(About the name)
The name of the press and website comes from Dolly Parton’s “Muleskinner Blues.”
Some background:
There is no song more representative of country music’s tangled history—few songs, perhaps, more representative of the entire tangle of American music history—than “Muleskinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8).” It is the Leonard Zelig of country songs, cropping up over and over in different guises at various milestones of the music, beginning with the original 1930 recording by its composer, the esteemed “Father of Country Music,” “Blue Yodeler” and “Singing Brakeman” Jimmie Rodgers. A few years later it became a staple in the repertoire of the Monroe Brothers (Bill and Charlie) and, as brother Bill and his Bluegrass Boys begat a new sound of their own, “Muleskinner Blues” would be invented all over as one of the hallmarks of the new genre bluegrass.The Boys’ “Muleskinner Blues” announced the arrival of a whole new thing: listen to the 1939 version from The Music of Bill Monroe boxed set and to the 1973 version from Monroe’s Bean Blossom album for the ultimate expressions of the bluegrass drive. If the first performance unleashes a new kind of energy and sound from an old standard (“The number’s a hot one,” the Grand Ole Opry announcer predicts)—the first sounds of what would before long become a distinct musical genre—the later Bean Blossom recording represents Monroe reveling in the full-fledged force of the bluegrass thing.
(Fiddler Jim Shumate, one of the earliest Bluegrass Boys, quoted in the notes to the Monroe box: “‘Muleskinner Blues’ was hot as a pistol when I was with Bill Monroe.I’d say, ‘Bill you’re going to have to lay the mule on ‘em.’ He could always lift them with ‘Muleskinner.’”)
When, then, Dolly Parton picked up the thread in 1970 she was herself consciously partaking in history-making. The song already was rich with connotation (it had also, in the 50s and 60s, been reworked as an early rocker, each in turn by Lonnie Donegan, Joe D. Gibson, and the Fendermen). To re-imagine, again, “Muleskinner Blues,” was to build on Rodgers and Monroe and the others and to re-imagine, again, the very rules of country music.Dolly had debuted on the Grand Ole Opry in 1959, at thirteen; in 1960 she cut “Puppy Love,” her first single, for the Goldband record label and in 1967 she had her real breakthrough with “Dumb Blonde.”Porter Wagoner hired her onto his TV show and they recorded a string of successful duets, but she was unable really to sell herself as a solo act until “Muleskinner Blues.”Play the song and, even now, it announces, wildly, its own whole new thing, the opening hook and Dolly’s first whistle and whipcrack onward.
It is a great song, and it sings of revolution. Just as Aretha Franklin, a few years previous, had altered forever the meaning of Otis Redding’s “Respect” by recording, and crucially re-gendering, it (“All I’m asking is for a little respect when you get home,” as danceable as it was sung by Otis, was suddenly not only more danceable than before but also, sung by Aretha, loaded with social and political meaning that transcended the tradition of the “cover” song)—so does Dolly’s Blue Yodel transform the meaning of the old song and transform, at that, the very possibilities of the man’s-world of country music. As with Aretha’s “Respect,” this was more than mere cover-ing. When, in the second verse, Dolly adjusts the familiar lyrics to announce “I’m a lady muleskinner, from down old Tennessee-way, hey hey,” it is clear that there is no going back.
* *
As significant a moment as this may be, and as significant as the song’s overall career may be, I should admit that there may be no overarching message in the selection of that line as the name of this new press. Or the overarching message, if it exists, could be incidental or even a happy accident, I’m not sure. I do know that since I first heard Dolly Parton’s “Muleskinner Blues” some years ago that phrase has captivated my imagination. I have imagined it on homemade t-shirts (black puffy letters ironed onto a dark blue or deep yellow) and have thought it a good idea for a band name; I can imagine also a drag queen adopting the title. When I needed a name for my press, at any rate, this was the first phrase to come into my head and it would not leave.
Lady Muleskinner Press’ first offering, after all, plumbs the history of country music, offering a guide to fiddlers, crooners, guitar- and banjo-pickers who have doubled as politicians; other writings on this website also tend to lean heavily on themes of downhome music. Or the theme, more broadly, of Southern culture—see the essay on W.C. Rice, or the links to Speak Magazine and Railroad Bill, the Alabama outlaw. But ultimately the website will grow more general than that, too, encompassing whatever my writing or my living-room press decides to take on. An upcoming essay will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of The Muppet Movie, and there is a small book of poetry afoot and, later, more. Other interests will very gradually follow. For all of that, though, I expect that this will remain primarily a downhome operation, heavy especially on the music. And though I can not claim the operation itself revolutionary maybe some of that spirit will rub off, too, and maybe some of the high-geared hell-for-leather energy that is part of the “Muleskinner Blues” legacy, lady-muleskinner and otherwise.
Finally, and while I am at it: if you have not ever done so, or not done so lately, tonight you should listen back-to-back to every version of “Muleskinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8)” you can obtain, downloaded or however; certainly to the versions listed above.But there are also these good ones, and more, too: Woody Guthrie’s; the Maddox Brothers & Rose’s; Ramblin’ Jack Elliot’s, from the opening scene of the movie The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack, recorded originally for The Johnny Cash Show; Odetta’s; the Cramps’. Kilby Snow has a great instrumental take on the autoharp. Listen to them, ideally, in chronological order. Harder to find (available as far as I know only on LP) is the Parton-influenced take by Otis Williams (African American r&b-turned-country singer) and the Midnight Cowboys. And there are other, if less crucial, manifestations. The Meat Purveyors did it as “Lady Muleskinner,” and a number of bluegraass acts have recorded it in pretty straight covers of either the Monroe or the Parton molds. Also related, vaguely (compare it to the Fendermen record for the clearest connection), is this 1970s Levi’s commercial.
Enough about the name and enough about what this all is. Thanks for visiting Lady Muleskinner Press. Check back when you can for updates and additions.
Take care.
– November, 2008
NOTE: Jocelyn Neal exhaustively and insightfully explores the rich and winding career of “Muleskinner Blues” in her book, The Songs of Jimmy Rodgers (Chapter Two: “Why Everybody Wanted to Be a Muleskinner.”) My own thinking about the song was doubtlessly influenced by conversations in Neal’s graduate course on country music at the University of North Carolina, circa 2004. The book, a recommended read, examines the lasting impact a handful of Rodgers’ songs have made on our culture — and the interesting impacts, also, our shifting culture has made on those songs.