Gilderoy

Up jumped Sally with her feet upon the drum,
The hair round her monkey was as red as any plum.
The down around her ass was as black as any coal,
And the dung balls jungled 'round her old asshole.

	Fiddler William Bigford recorded some forty-five songs, most of them bawdy, for fellow musician and collector Paul M. Gifford prior to 1982.  In forwarding the material, Gifford wrote these biographical notes about Bigford, who was born in 1898 in Farwell, Michigan.  (Farwell, like the other towns mentioned, is in central Michigan.)  

His father worked in the lumber camps in the vicinity.  In his teens, the family moved to Marion, Michigan.  Bill married Crystal, daughter of a lumbermill operator, and had eleven children.  He worked as a farmer and laborer, moving to Portland, Michigan, in the '40s, though he returned to live near Marion in the '60s.  He returned to Portland, where he lived the remainder of his life. [Bigford died in 1986.-- Ed.]  

He played a fiddle and bow he had made (he had several, using local materials).  His father also was a fiddler, who played in what Bill considered an older style, playing more hornpipes and tunes like "Money Musk" and "Beaux of Oak Hill."  Bill played square dance tunes, but also a lot of foxtrots and tunes he learned off the radio or juke box.

He had a sizeable repertoire of songs, most, but not all, of them somewhat dirty.  He liked to sing these and tell jokes after he'd had a few drinks.... Of his songs, some he probably learned from his father, who, Bill said, was a good singer.  Others he may have learned as a child or young man....

I first met Bill in 1972 and played music with him regularly from about 1975 to 1982 or so.  Using a cassette recorder, I taped these at parties, in the car while traveling, or in other impromptu situations.  I would transcribe them later, and, if there were questions (Bill had no teeth and liked to chew a cigar stub, so sometimes his enunciation wasn't the clearest), I would ask him later what the word was.