Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Yellow Dog Blues

[DWSI at aol.com]

Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Yellow Dog Blues

Mike Durham had such helpful history to offer on the origins of words such as 
Southern and Yellow Dog in the blues song, I'd like to try to answer his 
question: i.e., "What are the origins of the phrase, getting your ashes hauled?"  
Years ago, before oil and gas heat were common home heating methods, most 
homes used a coal furnace as did my family. As a boy, my job was to go down to the 
furnace every night, open the bottom grate, pull out the often still hot 
ashes, and shovel in new coal, stoking the furnace to keep it burning. The ashes 
were often hot and could start a fire unless you kept them in a safe place to 
cool. When cooled, I then had the job of putting them into container to be 
hauled off (by the garbage man or local handy man) to some unknown destination. If 
you didn't remove these ashes they could accumulate and create a mess. Other 
words from this life event were "clinker" (a rocklike ash formation) and 
"stoke" (to move the burning coal around letting air in to promote even burning. 
The significance of ashes, especially the hard, difficult to move ashes, was 
that when dropped on pavement, as they were being hauled, they made a ringing, 
dissonant and very unpleasant sound. The "clinker sound," as it was first 
called, over time evolved into what local musicians termed "bebop." Does that help?

Dan (piano fingers) Spink