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The Fox Chase

by Joseph Decosimo

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Pre-order the LP here:
josephdecosimo.bandcamp.com/album/while-you-were-slumbering

Full Release Notes Here:
www.sleepycatrec.com/scr0193-the-fox-chase

During the summer of 2020, I was hiking along the laurel bluffs above the Eno River, just north of Durham. I had been obsessing over Dee Hicks’ singing of this old English hunting ballad. Dee’s voice was delightfully grounded and gravelly yet capable of making some impressive melodic jumps. At some quieter moment during my walk, I stumbled upon a fox that was nesting in the ferns a few feet away and rousted it. I took it as a sign that I had to learn the song.

My friend and mentor Bobby Fulcher, who recorded Dee’s singing, dates this piece to hunts in 1688 in Yorkshire and observes that “it has undergone great change, through oral transmission, though the hound, Rule, found in the earliest broadside version from the Roxburghe Ballads, is still part of the pack.” I added my dear Charlie into the pack, although it’s unlikely that his stubby corgi nubbins could have kept up with those foxhounds. After twelve wonderful years with Charlie, we had to say goodbye to him in August 2022, long after I had recorded the song. We miss him. As the song says, Charlie is my good old dog forevermore, I know.

Related versions can be heard on a 1942 Alan Lomax recording of Will Starks from Clarksville, Mississippi and from Jimmie Tarlton of Columbus, Georgia.

Full Release Notes here:
www.sleepycatrec.com

lyrics

From the singing of Dee Hicks

Nero, Tiro, Tiptoe, and Sounder
Of all the dogs that I possess,
Old Rock and Rule they are the best,
But Charlie is my good old dog forever more, I know.

Come Uncle Joe, and let’s go home.
We’ll leave that old red fox alone.
For our pop he’s going to hunt him in the morning.
He’ll put his hounds up on that track.
They’ll run it off. They’ll bring it back.
They’ll run him from old England to old Kentucky, I know.

Now, put your ear upon the ground,
And good Lord just listen at my lead hound.
He’ll run him from old England to old Kentucky, I know.

Then I put my horn up to my mouth,
And I blew my horn North, East, and south,
But it seemed like my old hound couldn’t hear me.
And then I blew my horn so loud,
you could have heard it thunder in the clouds.
But I could still hear my old hound running
Yew-cue, yew-cue, yew-cue…

credits

released November 1, 2022
Vocals, Fiddles, Banjo, Pump Organ - Joseph Decosimo
Recorded by Joseph at home in Durham
Produced by Joseph Decosimo
Mixed by Alec Spiegelman
Mastered by Mike Monseur
Art direction and design by Gabe Anderson
Cover photo by Libby Rodenbough
Watercolors by Larissa Wood

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Joseph Decosimo Durham, North Carolina

plays rare fiddle/banjo tunes and sings old songs, especially fiddle/banjo music from the Appalachian South. Joseph has made a deep study of the the music of the Cumberland Plateau/East TN/Western NC regions and has performed and taught it around the world with the Bucking Mules. Beyond trad music, his fiddle/banjo can be heard on projects by Hiss Golden Messenger and others. ... more

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