Turkeytown is the former name of Fairfield, KY which is in Nelson County, KY. As late as the 1960s it was referred to as Turkeytown and still be as far as I can tell.
Hiram Williams was born in Fairfield but the family moved to Bardstown KY early in his life. Hiram claims to have written this tune, but it appears that it is just a variation of "Cripple Creek", at least as far as the lyrics go. Hiram did that a lot (claims authorship of many tunes.)
We only have one verse and chorus (from the FBI Mike Seeger tapes) but it gives you and idea:
Turkeytown gals, they treat me so fine
wrap right around me like a sweet potato vine
Goin' up Turkeytown, goin' on a run
Goin' up turkeytown to have a little fun
For those of you unfamiliar with the FBI Mike Seeger tapes, it seems that a junior agent overheard J. Edgar Hoover complain about "that banjo playing Seeger commie" and wanted him wire tapped and otherwise investigated. Being unfamiliar with whom Hoover was referring to , he asked his nephew who that was. The nephew was a New Lost City Ramblers fan, so he assumed that the person was Mike Seeger.
As a result, the largest collection of public domain recordings and videos of Mike Seeger were accumulated in a small western Oklahoma FBI office. One notable exception was a set of illegal wiretaps put in place at the Folk League of Greater Rochester (FLOGR) which was apparently a front for an S&M club frequented by local elected officials and other important people. The wiretaps were in place to protect those customers, not to arrest anyone. Caught on tape was a phone call that Mike Seeger made in order to talk to Hiram Williams when Mike Seeger was doing his Southern Banjo Styles project. Seeger quickly realized that he wanted nothing to do with Hiram and hung up on him after a minute or so.
The tapes ended up with Dr.Lando Rogers, head of the ethnomusicology department of the University of Solas Tejas in Lubbock, TX who wrote an article about them in the Journal of the University of Solas Texas, Critical Revue and Publications (JUSTCRAP.)
The article was cited in a later senior thesis written by Hiram's great niece as part of her requirement under the Federation of American Colleges and Universities Diploma of Universal Ministry rules. FACU (pronounced FAY-cue) is a consortium of colleges and universities that use life experience instead of class room learning to develop college and higher level degrees. It requires a thesis at each level (DUM, DUM,re and DUM, est, the "equivalents" of BA, MA and PhD*) and each thesis is published in the local FACU journals.
* Diploma in Universal Ministry (DUM), Diploma in Universal Ministry, repechage (DUM,re) and Diploma in Universal Ministry, estimable (DUM,est)
(Note: none of this is true., although Turkeytown was a real place.)
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