“Hop High My Lulu Gal” is a traditional old-time dance tune, one of countless American descendants of the Scottish reel “Miss McLeod’s.” In crossing the Atlantic and settling into Appalachian and Ozark fiddling, the tune was reshaped — among other changes, resolving home to the tonic in a way the Scottish original does not — and it became closely tied to a family of related tunes that includes “Hop Light Ladies” and “Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe.”
The tune has no single author. It was documented among traditional Ozark fiddle tunes by the folklorist Vance Randolph, and it was recorded from Virginia musicians for the folklorist Alan Lomax as early as the late 1930s, evidence of how widely it had spread through Southern string-band music.
Bright and built for dancing, “Hop High My Lulu Gal” carried easily from old-time into bluegrass as an instrumental showpiece.
