Don't let your deal go down - trad.

Don't Let Your Deal Go Down

Play along note;Gypsy Jazz works for this one.
I've been using pop/country for the Bluegrass songs the songs that are 200bpm and up but this one is around 100 with a double time feel that Gypsy Jazz does.

just for fun notes
(Originally published: Inside Bluegrass, December 1999)
When I first heard this song (recorded in 1925 by Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers), I assumed the chorus referred to Blackjack, since in non-casino games the dealer loses the deal if someone else hits blackjack. Later, someone suggested the game was Cooncan, because several other folksongs are about playing that game. A trip to Hoyle at the library, however, revealed that Cooncan is the Spanish game Conquian, a form of rummy. Your deal doesn't go down in Rummy, or, if it does, it doesn't matter.

According to Kinney Rorrer's excellent book, Rambling Blues -- The Life and Songs of Charlie Poole (available from Rorrer at 913 Vicar Road, Danville VA 24540), another North Carolina musician, having learned the song from a local black guitarist in 1911, taught the words to Poole, who already knew the tune. The African-American origin clue connected when I heard Peg Leg Howell's Skin Game Blues (Before the Blues, Vol. 2, Yazoo CD 2016):

You better let the deal go down,
For the skin game's comin' to a close ...

Hoyle never heard of the Skin Game, but I ran across it in Zora Neale Hurston's 1935 book, Mules and Men, republished in 1990 by Harper Perennial: it's called the Georgia Skin Game, and here's a condensed version of her description, as it was played in the Florida lumber camps:

"Any number of Pikers can play, but there are 2 Principals who deal. If the first one's deal "falls," the other Principal takes the deal. If he in turn falls, the deal goes back to the first Principal. The Principals draw the first 2 cards, while the pikers draw from the 3rd card on. A player can "scoop one in the rough": he can choose his card from anywhere in the deck. The dealer charges whatever he wants for the privilege of Scooping, and, since it's the scooping player's bet, the money is put in sight. The dealer then begins to turn the cards in the deck, and each player picks a card to bet on. The players then chant "turn 'em" and "let the deal go down" as the dealer turns the cards. If a card of the same value turns up as your card, you "fall." You then pick another unfallen card to bet on and the game continues until the entire deck is turned. There are lots of side bets placed also."

Those rules are mighty confusing, so instead of betting, maybe I'll watch the game a little longer to see how it's played. If I learn more about it, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, the best way to learn the syncopations (which are slightly different for each verse) is from the original, on County CD 3501, Charlie Poole, Vol. 1.