Hillbilly Music isn’t my go – to genre, but I have to make an exception in this case. I can’t help but enjoy Mountain Dew; a bit like what the Coen Bros did with O Brother, Where Art Thou? Mountain Dew is technically ‘Bluegrass‘ music but according to this Wikipedia article: ‘Bluegrass was initially included in the category of folk music and later changed to hillbilly’.
Down the road here from me there’s an old holler tree
Where you lay down a dollar or two
Go on round the bend come back again
There’s a jug full of that good ole mountain dew
[Chorus:]
Oh they call it that good ole mountain dew and them that refuse it are few
I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug with that good ole mountain dew
Now Mr. Roosevelt told ’em just how he felt
When he heard that the dry law ‘d gone through
If your liquors too red it’ll swell up your head
You better stick to that good ole mountain dew
[Chorus:]
The preacher rode by with his head hasted high
Said his wife had been down with the flu
He thought that I o’rt to sell him a quart of my good ole mountain dew
I got this song from Max’s blog PowerPop, so I’ll turn it over to him:
I got really curious and looked the song up. It’s great…I’ve always liked these old folk songs and bluegrass music because I respect it so much. I’ve played bluegrass with a professional before and it is some of the hardest music I’ve tried to play. The time signatures are all over the place and if you haven’t played the music a lot… it can be tricky. It made me a better musician.
I like the music because it’s so rootsy and earthy. I don’t listen to it a lot but sometimes I will enjoy an hour or so of it. It reminds me of when my dad would go to work in the morning and sometimes he would have this music on.
References:
1. The Stanley Brothers – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Thanks Matt! As you know I don’t listen to this music everyday but sometimes it hits the spot. Back then bluegrass and folk music was like newspapers…spreading the news.
I can hear in this song why you impressed upon the technicality of the guitar / banjo work finger picking.
I don’t know if it was shown in your area of where you grew up…but another place I heard this music was on The Andy Griffith Show.
Those musicians were really good.
I hardly heard this music growing up. I don’t think the show was on in Australia. I don’t know, Yeh great musicianship in this.
This song was written by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. I lived on Lunford land in North Carolina for a few years, and my neighbours were Bascom Lunsford’s 5 daughters and a daughter-in-law – esp. Merton, Jo, and Edna.. We ended up being taken to many a folk festival and I almost learnt to dance the Appalachian way!
I should have read the comments section of Max’s post. Thanks for rounding out this modest article with your personal connection to the family and knowledge of the song.
You can do worse than folk festivals and dancing, not to mention having Bascom Lunsford’s 5 daughters as neighbours!
Not my go-to genre of music either, but that intricate guitar noodling is quite impressive!
It is – Just listening to it again. I wish I’d thought of ‘guitar noodling’. That’s great Jeff!
Ha ha, thanks Matt!