The Old Black Dog Lesson

Dick Justice’s 1929 landmark

West Virginia singer-guitarist Dick Justice recorded “Old Black Dog” in Chicago on 20 May 1929. Brunswick paired it with “Cocaine” on disc 395. Justice came from Logan County’s coal country and moved among ballad singers, fiddlers, banjo players, and blues guitarists rather than staying inside one neat genre.

West Virginia University’s account says he probably learned this song from Bayless Rose, a Black Kentucky bluesman and railroad worker with whom he played. “Probably” matters: the relationship is remembered, but no session document captures the teaching moment. Justice’s record is a crucial witness, not a certificate naming him as composer.

A song family with several names

Smithsonian Folkways connects “Old Black Dog” with “Black Dog Blues,” “Call Me a Dog,” and “Last Gold Dollar.” The family also overlaps the gambling-song world of “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down,” commercially recorded by Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers in 1925.

The recurring joke is social and economic. A traveller is called a dog while absent or penniless, then warmly welcomed when he returns carrying money. Other floating verses introduce gambling, Kentucky and Tennessee, trains, bills, and departure. The title does not make the song a story about a literal pet.

Black and white traditions met in the coalfields

Justice’s repertoire joined inherited British ballads with Appalachian dance music and blues or pre-blues guitar practice. His musical relationships with Black players such as Rose and fiddler Pete Hill complicate any claim that this was an isolated “white mountain” tradition.

That does not mean every melodic detail can be assigned to one teacher. It means the sound grew in a region where railroad work, mines, records, dances, and personal contact let materials cross racial and commercial boundaries. Calling the song purely Scottish, purely blues, or solely Justice’s composition erases that exchange.

Recordings continued to reshape it

The Stoneman Family recorded “Black Dog Blues” for Folkways in the 1950s. Bascom Lamar Lunsford and later field musicians preserved “Last Gold Dollar” relatives. Smithsonian notes explicitly say southern singers varied melody even more freely than title and text.

That variability is the tradition, not corruption. Modern old-time groups can point to Dick Justice as a source while making different rhythmic or instrumental choices. Likewise, British ghostly black-dog legends and Led Zeppelin’s later “Black Dog” are unrelated unless independent evidence establishes a connection.

Whisflo’s blues-inflected eight bars

The local arrangement is C-blues-inflected, 4/4, at 120 BPM. It spans B♭4–G5 and uses B♭, C, D, E♭, E-natural, and G. Its eight bars contain 43 attacks. Eight B-flats and seven E-flats make 15 slide attacks; the other 28 are natural.

The form is A–A′. Bars 1–4 return as 5–8 with two small changes: the fifth attack of bar 6 is E♭ instead of G, and the last two quarter-note Cs become one half-note C. Because E♭ and E-natural coexist over a C centre, “E minor” is inaccurate.

Direct comparison with Justice’s 1929 recording confirms the refrain contour, but the singer bends pitch and stretches time. This is an equal-tempered teaching transcription at 120 BPM, not a claim that the historical vocal was metrically rigid; nylon-guitar playback replaces the sharper flute sound.

Practise the colour change

Start at 72 BPM with bars 2 and 6. Speak their pitches aloud and notice the only melodic substitution: G in the first pass, E♭ in the second. Work the slide without squeezing the mouthpiece; the button must finish travelling before each attack.

Then compare bars 4 and 8. Keep the four eighth notes equally buoyant, but articulate two Cs in bar 4 and sustain one C for two beats in bar 8. Advance through 88 and 104 to 120 BPM. The blues colour needs firm centred tone, not an artificially rough or breathy sound.