More about the music on 'Soon Be Time'
updated September 18, 2006

Folk music is so much greater when you have the big picture of where it came from and some vision for where it's going. I chose the traditional tunes for Soon Be Time mostly just because I love to play them, but each one has deep roots in regional histories and among the old players and communities we're lucky enough to have information about. Kerry Blech, a dear friend, great historian and passionate player of American traditional music, has written a piece giving us detailed historical information as well as his own thoughts and musings on the tunes. It's a work in progress and we'll be following it up and adding to it as time goes on. If you'd like to share other information or comments, please drop us a line. And if you'd like to purchase a copy of Soon Be Time, please visit our store.

Soon Be Time --- Web Notes by Kerry Blech
posted May 22, 2006, updated September 18, 2006

Lazy John (fiddle tuned F#C#G#D#, which is GDAE tuned a semi-tone flat, key of F#)
Clyde Davenport is Bruce’s source for this lovely “song-tune.” Clyde was born on October 21, 1921 near Mt. Pisgah, in Wayne County, Kentucky, on the Cumberland Plateau, then (and still) a hotbed of old time music. But Clyde did not have to go far to find great fiddling. His father Will Davenport, born in 1876, was a fiddler with a fine local reputation, as was Clyde’s grandfather Francis Marion Davenport. Clyde claims, however, that he never learned to play from any of his relatives, or anyone else for that matter. He repeatedly has said, “It just come to me; it’s a gift.”

Jeff Todd Titon, who recorded Clyde extensively in 1990, wrote a lovely set of biographical notes about Clyde for the Appalachian Center cassette tape Clyde Davenport – Puncheon Camps (AC002, Appalachian Center, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky). Clyde played and sang this piece on that tape. Jeff quotes Clyde in those notes “I heard this once on the radio and learned it.” Dr. Titon then proceeds to suggest that the radio source might have been Johnny Lee Wills and his western swing band who recorded a song called Lazy John on the Decca label in the 1940s (which is too late to appear in any of my discographies). I’ve not heard the Wills track, nor am I familiar with any other source renditions of this particular song-tune. Clyde still plays, at home and away, but is traveling and performing less these days. He won the National Heritage Award in 1992 and used some of the prize money to relocate from his longtime home in Monticello, Kentucky to his present abode near Jamestown, Tennessee, also on the Cumberland Plateau.

Clyde had a very nice LP on County, Clydeoscope (County 788, 1986) and also has two CDs currently in print, both issued in 2005 by the Field Recorders’ Collective (FRC 103 & 104) as Clyde Davenport, Vol. 1 & 2, from recordings made by Ray Alden and home tape recordings Clyde made himself. Perhaps more difficult to find but worth the effort are some recordings of Clyde on the LP anthology County 786, Getting’ Up The Stairs – Traditional Music from the Cumberland Plateau, volume 1: Music of the Big South Fork Area (produced by Clyde’s longtime friend and accompanist Bobby Fulcher); and two LPs on the Davis Unlimited label that feature Clyde on banjo accompanying fiddler W.L. Gregory. For the full effect, you might want to try and track down the VHS video Shades of Clyde, made by Buddy Ingram and issued on his Cedar Glade label. I don’t know if Buddy has any plans to try and issue this (and other fine tapes on his label) as DVDs, however. If Clyde appears in your area, by all means make every effort to see him in person. He had traveled and performed extensively over the years with accompanists such as Bobby Fulcher, Andy Cahan, Steve Green, Alice Gerrard and others, and currently usually has Michael DeFosche along for (ac)company, a combination not to be missed.

The Bucking Mule (see Lazy John above for fiddle tuning)
J. Dedrick Harris, born about 1868 in Flag Pond, Tennessee, moved to the Asheville, North Carolina area, and died about 1933. He recorded this piece on fiddle in New York City in late 1924, issued as Broadway 1963, with Ernest Helton on banjo, which in turn has inspired Bruce to play and record it. In the early part of the 20th century, Harris was immensely influential with the elder fiddlers (though younger than he) in western Carolina, among them Bill Hensley. Osey and Ernest Helton, Manco Sneed, and Marcus Martin.

A concept that greatly interests me is that of the “tune family.” Guthrie Meade’s landmark book Country Music Sources – A Biblio-Discography of Commercially Recorded Traditional Music represents to a great degree his impression of this concept, as it does not appear as a regular discography, but the songs and tunes are grouped, in “tune families” if you will. You will find Harris’ rendition of Buckin’ Mule in IV-E. Southern Breakdowns, on page 779, along with its close relative family, Whip The Devil Around the Stump (which Harris also recorded and which Bruce also plays). This website is not really the place to delve into this very deeply, but I thought this a good opportunity to mention the concept, and those who are interested can check into it in their own good time. Meade has arranged the entries in each grouping in chronological order, so we see that several artists recorded Buckin’ Mule before he did, and he was mighty early, in late 1924. We see, however, that John Carson committed it to shellac a full year earlier; Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett put it down in Spring of ’24’; Stovepipe No. 1 in late summer of 1924, and Bill Chitwood and Bud Andress only days ahead of Harris.

J.D. Harris was the first artist to wax Whip the Devil, though, in the same session he put down Buckin’ Mule. Some of the recordings that Meade has put in the Whip the Devil family include: McCarroll’s Breakdown (1929) by Jimmy McCarroll and the Roane County Ramblers; Hog Jowls and Barbeque (1930), as rendered by A.A. Gray on a skit by Seven Foot Dilly, et al, A Georgia Barbeque on Stone Mountain; and Chickens In the Garden (1930), by Hugh Roden and Roy Rogers. From non-commercial recordings, he’s included Booger Man (Bill Hensley and others), Pretty Little Girl With the Blue Dress One (John Summers), and Puncheon Floor (Harvey Sharp), among other pieces. The concept of the tune family has not been formally defined, though some in the folkloric world have made their attempts, though none really satisfy me; I have not tried to formulate what it is or isn’t, but I have a gut feeling about what pieces are related. I think if you take the time and energy to locate these pieces I’ve mentioned in this essay-length entry, you will catch at least some of how I feel about such relationships, as well as Gus Meade’s and others.

Wandering Boy (banjo tuned A-DADE, key of D)
This piece has, particularly, a very interesting history. The rendition whence Bruce’s performance originates comes from the very first commercial recording of this song, a fiddle solo from Frank Jenkins, issued on Gennett 6165, recorded in Richmond, Indiana in May 1927 as part of the sole recording session by one of the greatest of all string bands, Da Costa Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters, of which Jenkins was a member, primarily as a banjo player.

Frank Jenkins was born August 27, 1888 in Dobson, Surry County, North Carolina and died on April 8, 1945. You can listen to his wonderful banjo solo Babtist [sic] Shout, from that same May 1927 recording session, on Rounder CD 0439/0440, The North Carolina Banjo Collection. He also fronted Frank Jenkins’ Pilot Mountaineers. Jenkins’ recording of Wandering Boy was also issued as Challenge 15305 (as by John Burham); Silvertone 5083 and 8177, and Supertone 9175 (as by Louis Watson). It also may be heard on Document CD 8023 Da Costa Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters & Frank Jenkins’ Pilot Mountaineers, Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, 1927-1929.

What, to me, is most interesting is that, though this was the first issued recording of this title, it is the only issuance, to my knowledge, of this as an instrumental, as it usually appears as a vocal. A few months after Jenkins waxed his side, the best-known recording of it was being made in Bristol, Tennessee by The Carter Family, which has been reissued about a zillion and a half times. Gus Meade reports in Country Music Sources that the origin of this number was Somebody’s Boy Is Homeless Tonight, words and music by R.S. Hanna, published in 1894. The Carters recorded it again in 1938 as Bring Back My Boy, but it seems that nearly everyone under the sun was either recording it, singing it on the radio, or performing it in personal appearances throughout the remainder of the 1920s and through the ‘thirties, sometimes with these names, but often under other titles. A select list of artists who recorded it would include Emry Arthur, Mac and Bob, Goebel Reeves, The Blue Sky Boys, and Lulu Belle & Scott.

As a song, it flourishes today as a bluegrass standard, but the instrumental version rather languishes in relative obscurity. Perhaps Bruce will help change this attitude and lead the “charge” for an instrumental renaissance, even as lovely as the song is.

Buckdancer’s Choice
This lovely guitar showpiece was the first solo number that Sam McGee recorded, on April 14, 1926 in New York City. It was issued as Vocalion 15318 and 5094. This was his solo effort in the midst of a recording session he had as accompanist and foil to Uncle Dave Macon. The late Charles Wolfe wrote in several places that the recording engineer at that session, Jack Kapp, heard Mister Sam noodling on his guitar between takes with Uncle Dave and suggested he make a solo recording. Buck Dancer’s Choice was the first one he put down that day.

Dr. Wolfe related that this was a melody that Sam McGee put together to play for Dancing Bob Bradford, a buck dancer who sometimes toured with Uncle Dave Macon. Sam McGee was born May 1, 1894, and resided in Franklin, Tennessee; he died in August 1975 in a tractor accident on his farm. Reissues of McGee’s recording can be found in numerous places, but in the best context it is found on the multiple-disk set, Bear Family 15978 Uncle Dave Macon – Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy. For those with slimmer pocketbooks, check out Document CD 8036, Sam McGee, Complete Recorded Works…

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie (fiddle tuned FCGD, key of F)
Fields Ward, Bruce’s source for this setting for this song, recorded it as an unaccompanied vocal on Rounder LP 0036, Bury Me Not on the Prairie. Mr. Ward had recorded it in Bel Air, Maryland in 1972 and the LP was issued in 1972. Fields Ward was born on the 23rd of January, 1911, on Buck Mountain, near Independence, Virginia, the son of famed fiddler Davy Crockett Ward, who was only one of many talented Wards in that area. Fields recorded with his dad’s band in 1929 and later for the Library of Congress as a member of the Bog Trotters. He died on October 26, 1987, after having moved to, and lived for many years in, Bel Air, Maryland.

Fields apparently learned this classic cowboy song from his parents, both highly esteemed singers. It is difficult to guess where the Wards may have latched on to this chestnut. Perhaps they learned it from Jules Verne Allen’s 1929 recording, under the title The Dying Cowboy (Victor 23834). Though Allen was touted as “The Original Singing Cowboy,” a recording of this song predates his rendition by a decade: Bentley Ball’s The Dying Cowboy from 1919 (Columbia 90038-1), though Ball certainly was no cowboy himself (and sang with a mannered operatic voice). Then again, the song had quite a life of its own beyond commercial recordings. All the songs of this theme likely descended from a poem written by Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814-1880), a minister and author from New York City. He composed The Ocean Burial as an elegy for those lost and buried at sea, which undoubtedly was adapted for the cowboys’ “last rites” that took place on the “Sea of Grass.” The prolific composer and adapter of religious music, George N. Allen, set Chapin’s poem to music in 1850 with the melody that most of us have known all our lives.

Mark Wilson stresses that many of us “underestimate the degree to which young Appalachian youth often worked out West for a few years before returning home, bringing songs with them. Also, some of these ‘cowboyizations’ of older songs were just as likely to originate in the East as in the West, insofar as we’ve been able to trace them. The Bentley Ball recording probably represents a typical exemplar of the ‘college ballad recital’ phenomenon that was often encouraged by English teachers in the ‘teens and ‘twenties, although I doubt Fields’ version comes from such a source. We tend to forget how important those events were in instilling Southern pride and in keeping some measure of interest in folksong alive.”

Gus Meade, in his book Country Music Sources (page 19) notes an attribution for Bury Me Not to one H. Clemons of Deadwood, South Dakota in 1872;. he also cites Malcolm Laws’ entry in Native American Balladry (page 134). For his citations of recordings, he wrote that the earliest commercial release of this song was by Carl T. Sprague (Victor 20122) in 1926. It was covered quite often after that, most frequently by Vernon Dalhart, but also by Obed Pickard, the aforementioned Jules Verne Allen, Phil & Frank Luther, Asa Martin & James Roberts, and the Girls of the Golden West.

Fields Ward’s uncle, Wade Ward ( born 15 October, 1892, died May 1971), was fond of playing this melody as a fiddle solo. Several renditions of that, as Lone Prairie, can be found on LP and CD: the Folkways LP 2362 Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward, Folkways LP 2380 Uncle Wade, and on the Smithsonian Folkways CD 40097 Close To Home. And now we have Bruce combining the ideas of the two Wards, Fields and Wade, with his vocal accompanied by his fiddle.

[Portions of this entry were adapted and/or borrowed from the booklet notes to Rounder CD 11599, The Art of Old-Time Mountain Music, with the permission and compliance of tha CD’s compiler and author of those booklet notes, Kerry Blech. The recording of Fields Ward, cited above, appears on that anthology.]

The Brass Band Ruchenitsa
Though I am a fan of Balkan music, I have little concrete knowledge of the origins and development of the music. Bruce reports that the source of this is a track of a Bulgarian brass band on a CD that Andy Irvine gave to him when the band they are both in, Mozaic, was thinking of new material to learn for performance and recordings. Bruce sent me a copy of this track, but I was unable to more precisely identify it, and neither were the Balkanologists to whom I forwarded copies. Brass music seems to be popular throughout the world; I even have some brass band music from Tonga! In central and eastern Europe, it seems that the military brass bands were among the first entities to play music in such a way, but civilian bands also sprung up and in many cases, such as the inspiration for Bruce’s guitar rendition here, the civilian bands adapted their local folk melodies to the brass instrumentation. An aural example that I obtained not too long ago is Pan Records 153CD Bulgarian Brass – Military and civil brass bands. I mentioned the band Mozaic earlier in this entry. You should check them out whenever you get a chance. Bruce has itineraries, when pertinent, and available recordings posted elsewhere on this site.

Georgia Belles (fiddle tuned ADAE, key of A)
Contrary to what Bruce wrote in the booklet notes, we’ve found no record of this title having being recorded by Santford Kelly so far. I don’t plan on raking Bruce over the coals about this, mind you, but we, collectively would like to save you the effort of hunting for it by stating this. [Bruce adds: "I'm busted!!] It was an honest mistake, for anyone familiar with this tune and with Kelly’s playing would agree that had he heard it, indeed he would have played it. Bill Hensley however, is known to have recorded it in 1946. This title and melody was not recorded commercially in “the old days,” always appearing as a field recording. Hensley was born in Happy Valley, near Johnson City, Tennessee, in 1868; he moved to Madison County, North Carolina, then to Buncombe County, North Carolina.

Another Carolinian who recorded it was Manco Sneed, born in 1885 in Jackson County, North Carolina. He later moved to Graham County where he encountered J. Dedrick Harris (see the notes to track #1, above). Sneed was recorded by Blanton Owen, Peter Hoover, and Glen Massey, among others. He died in January 1975 in Cherokee, Swain County, North Carolina. Osey Helton is reported to have played it as well and was recorded doing so under the auspices of Jan Schinhan, a professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, in about 1940. Schinhan’s instantaneous disk recordings of Hensley reside in the archive at the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC-CH, unheard, so far, by this writer.

Paul Wells of the Center For Popular Culture at Middle Tennessee State University could not discern a clear cognate or antecedant for Georgia Belles, but did send a recording of Irish flute player supreme Catherine McEvoy playing a seemingly close relative, Fair Haired Mary, but it sounds no closer than a number of other Irish tunes with similar chord structures. Dr. Wells, using Hensley’s rendition as a base, would suggest a Scots origin rather than Irish. A number of my correspondents noted that Miles Krassen had published a transcription of Manco’s setting in his book Masters of Old-Time Fiddling (Oak Publications, 1983). Krassen reports in his notes to the tunes that Sneed learned Georgia Belle from J.D. Harris and/or Mac Hensley, who was Bill Hensley’s uncle. Neither of these elder fiddlers were recorded playing this tune. It is probable that Bill Hensley learned it from either or both, as well. Osey Helton was a part of that vital western Carolina scene and has to figure into all of this, too. The flexidisk that is included with Krassen’s book contains Manco’s version, as collected and recorded by Peter Hoover in 1959.

Peter Hoover’s recordings of Manco Sneed will be a part of the Summer 2006 set of CDs issued by Field Recorders’ Collective, though I don’t know at the time of this writing whether this tune will be on that disk (FRC 505).

The Golden Willow Tree (banjo tuned G-DGCD, key of G)
This is one of those classic ballads that seems to be found in nearly every collection. Francis Child classified it as Number 286 in his grand work English and Scottish Ballads (as The Sweet Trinity, or The Golden Vanity, 1882-1898), Bronson as #286 as well, Vance Randolph as #38 (as The Lowlands Low in his Ozark Folk Songs [1946-1950]), and on and on. It is found in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, and perhaps further afield by now. In English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians, collected by Cecil Sharp and edited by Maud Karpeles, we find numerous entries collected in 1916 in North Carolina and then the following year in Kentucky, including ones from Luther Shadoin in Lexington; Miss N.F. Stoton of Berea; Mrs. Polly Patrick and Mrs. Nanny Smith in Manchester; William Wooten in Hindman; and Miss May Ritchie in Pine Mountain.

As for recorded renditions, the earliest that Guthrie Meade cites was never issued, from 1925, but the same artists – Welby Toomey with Doc Roberts and Gus Boaz -- came out with it the following year as The Golden Willow Tree, Gennett 3195/Challenge 232. Probably the most popular and influential commercial recording of this was the one issued in 1935 by The Carter Family as Sinking in the Lonesome Sea (Vocalion 30160 [and other issues]). A much more recent, and popular, issue of this song was by Horton Barker who recorded it as The Turkish Rebilee on the Folkways album FW FA2362 in 1961.

As Bruce pointed out in his booklet notes, he learned it from a recording of Justus Begley who played it for Alan Lomax’s Library of Congress field trip, in Hazard, Kentucky on October 17,1937, banjo and vocal (AFS 1530 A & B1). Begley’s performance can be heard on Kentucky Mountain Music, Yazoo 2200, an excellent 7-CD boxed set. Charles Wolfe wrote in the booklet, quoting Alan Lomax, “Begley ‘picks the banjo and sings The Golden Willow Tree when he is running for sheriff in Perry County.’ Begley had two married daughters, Nancy Stacey and Hazel Hudson, who sang well enough to be recorded as well by Lomax.” The booklet also contains a very fine photograph of Begley playing the banjo.

Forked Deer (new) (fiddle tuned ADAE, key of D)
One of the most venerable of American old-time fiddle tunes is Forked Deer. It is also one of the most widely-distributed tunes in the United States, being played, heard, and documented seemingly everywhere. What seems to be the earliest published folio of Forked Deer is found in Knauff’s Virginia Reels, Folio 1, published by George Willig Jr in Baltimore in 1839. In playing it from this folio, it sounds very similar to how it is played by most fiddlers today. We must assume that before George Knauff collected it and set it in the pianoforte arrangement we find in Virginia Reels that the tune had been in circulation for a while, as it seems to be quite robust, with nary a hint of old-world to it, to my way of thinking. This melody is oft-printed through the intervening 167 years since Knauff first notated it. It remains recognizable throughout, as I noted. One of these printings was published in 1973 in The Old-Time Fiddler’s Repertory (University of Missouri Press), featuring hundreds of transcriptions of tunes by R.P. “Bob” Christeson. The Forked Deer he prints [#89, page 64] is transcribed from a recording he made of George Helton in July 1956. What to me is most intriguing, moreso than the transcription itself, is Christeson’s head-note where he states, “This tune bears considerable resemblance to ‘Rachel Rae,’ found in some of the older Scottish tune collections as well as in White’s Solo Banjoist (Boston, 1896).” Some people have taken this statement as perhaps meaning that Rachel Rae is an antecedent of Forked Deer, but I do not believe that is what Mr. Christeson intended. He merely noted the melodic contour similarity, and only on one part of the tune, for that matter.

Rachael Rae was first published in 1844 in a set of Scots tunes, Collections, by John Lowe. Lowe stated that it was composed by his father. John Hartford wrote in his notes to the Ed Haley reissue, Forked Deer (Rounder 1131/1132, and the source version for Bruce’s rendition) that John Lowe’s grandfather Joseph Lowe composed it in 1815. To some of us who study such things, given these dates, the publishing dates, and how slowly news (and tunes) traveled in the early 19th Century, it is rather doubtful that Rachel Rae is a parent to our Forked Deer. Paul Wells, of Middle Tennesee State University’s Center For Popular Music, told me recently that it seems more likely that there is a common parental tune to both Forked Deer and Rachel Rae rather than one being the parent to the other.

I agree with Paul’s analysis and scenario and am also indebted to him for providing some of the research material I have used in this entry. There are no absolutes in anything I’ve written here, as it mostly is speculation on my part and what Paul has discussed with me is speculative as well, but it is based on the printed and aural historical record. And for the record, one of the writings has more than casually influenced me. Mark Wilson wrote in his notes to the CD reissue of J.P and Annadeene Fraley’s Wild Rose of the Mountain, “ R.P. Christeson hypothesized that the tune traces to Joseph Lowe’s Rachel Rae, but I am dubious, being familiar with how the latter tune is played in Scots tradition.” I concur wholly with the concept of style being part and parcel to the possibility of transmission and such.

Now, coming from this point, there is an interesting sidelight to examine. One A. Porter Hamblen (born 1875) arranged and copied a number of tunes that his father Williamson (1846-1920) and grandfather David R. (1809-1893) played. A copy of Hamblen’s folio is in the Library of Congress, whence many of us obtained copies. David was originally from Virginia, near the Cumberland Gap in Lee County, and moved his family to Brown County, Indian in 1857. Page 30 of the Hamblen folio gives us A. Porter’s transcription of his dad Williamson’s playing what they called Forked Ear. It is recognizably a variant of our Forked Deer, except that the coarse part does not go to the A chord at all, like most renditions of this tune do. In that respect, it has a rather vague similarity to the coarse part of Rachel Rae. This makes me wonder if old Rachel had some sort or a melodic or tonal impact on its cousin or sibling, The Forked Deer?

If you are interested in checking out Rachel Rae for yourself, the most easily accessible version of it can be found in Cole’s One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, and it’s predecessor, Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (1883), where it is found in the reels section as Jimmy Holmes’ Favorite Reel. Paul Wells reports that this setting is very, very similar to the early setting of Rachel Rae, such as found in Lowe’s collection and also in an earlier New England manuscript collection of Scots tunes dated about 1822. If you decide to do a web-search, you will find many alternate titles for Rachel Rae and Jimmy Holmes’, many of which have been recorded.

This brings us, finally, to the subject at hand. While most fiddlers have been content to render Forked Deer as a two-part tune, many of the “brag fiddlers” of yore in many communities decided to push the envelope. In essence, what they did was develop variations, straying from the basic melody in varying degrees. Eventually, some of these fiddlers set some of these variations as separate and discrete parts. Hence, we have Kentuckian J.W. Day’s (ca. 1861-1942) classic 5-part rendition from 1928 (Victor 21407). His, however, was not the earliest issued recording. That honor went to Tennessee’s Uncle Am Stuart (1853-1926), whose Forki Deer was recorded in 1924 and issued several times on the Vocalion and Brunswick labels. Perhaps West Virginia’s Clark and Luches Kessinger’s (Clark, 1896-1975) torrid rendition of Forked Deer Hornpipe (Brunswick 247, 1928) was more influential? Then there is the exciting execution by Kentucky’s Jim Booker (1872-1941) and Marion Underwood (Gennett 6130, 1927). Most of these were two-parters, but Tennessee’s Charlie Bowman (b. 1889) issued another 5-parter (Columbia 15387) in 1929 that many people still talk about.

Another “brag fiddler” of that era never recorded commercially, but was a major figure nonetheless, the legendary (until relatively recently, when we finally got to hear his 1946 home recordings, and we discovered everything people had been saying about him was true, even moreso!) Ed Haley (1883–1951), born in West Virginia, but who lived much of his life in Kentucky. I won’t go into a biographical sketch here. Instead, I suggest you check out the John Hartford website and also actually purchase the two 2-cd sets of Haley on the Rounder label (Rounder 1131/32 & 1133/34), in which Hartford’s notes extol this genius of a fiddler. Haley made his living from his music, unlike most of the others mentioned above. Most of his money was made playing on the streets and for private affairs, so he polished his work. He played a 5-part Forked Deer, or at the least, we have a home recording of him doing so. Who knows what other inventiveness he may have infused this tune with on other occasions. I think upon close inspection you will find him doing elaborate variations within each of the ‘set parts,’ as well, which is what we’ve come to expect from him. We also sometimes are able to hear him ‘quote’ other fiddlers. One of my old friends, Rector Hicks, knew Haley in the 1920s and ‘30s and said that what came out on the Rounder issues of the Haley home recordings were quite different from how Haley had played earlier, which is to be expected. I tried to get Rector to describe how he remembered Haley’s earlier playing. Once, I brought over a tape of J.W. Day, not mentioning to Rector who it was. He immediately sat up and said, “That’s what Ed Haley sounded like when I was a youngster.” If you are familiar with Day’s phrasing and ornamentation, you will clearly hear Haley quote in him in some of his home recordings. I do firmly believe that Haley’s showpiece of Forked Deer was wrought from what Day had earlier manifested. I hear quotes from other fiddlers, too, that we can identify with some more intense scrutiny, but a lot of it is his own invention, and much may be influenced by fiddlers we have not yet heard in this day and time…

Bruce states in his booklet notes that what he has recorded here is “loosely based around” how Haley played it. We’d expect nothing else, as that is truly in the spirit of Ed Haley’s fiddling style.

Fare Thee Well Blues
Bruce never ceases to amaze me with the gems he snatches from near obscurity, or at least from the image of obscurity to someone like me who pretty much dwells only in “old time world.” I also enjoy country blues immensely, but I just don’t spend much time with it as I do old time music. So this was a bit of a challenge, trying to come up with something to say here. Googling, I found a photograph of Joe Callicott’s tombstone, which read:

Jesus On My Bond
Mississippi Joe Callicott
1899 – 1969

Callicott was an original medicine show songster who played throughout the vast Delta
from 1918 until his death. He recorded for Arhoolie Records.

I do not have a copy (yet) of the pre-war Blues and Gospel canon/discograpy by Godrich, Dixon & Rye, but Paul Wells of the Center For Popular Music (MTSU, Murfreesboro, TN) sent me the gist of the entry from G,D&R:
Joe Calicott [one "L"] recorded Fare Thee Well Blues in Memphis, Thursday, February 20, 1930. Issued Brunswick 7166.
Andy Cohen reported the same items but also told me about a friend of his who worked with Joe C. Andy will be getting me in touch with this gentleman and I hope to be able to add more personal information about the artist at that time. I found some additional material about Callicott’s output at a number of online blues sites:

Garfield Akers, voc, guitar and Joe Callicott, 2nd guitar, September 23, 1929
Cottonfield Blues, parts 1 and 2 (Vocalion 1442)

Joe Callicott, vocal and guitar, September 25, 1929
Mississippi Boll Weevil Blues (Brunswick unissued)

Joe Callicott, vocal and guitar, February 20, 1930
Fare Thee Well Blues / Traveling Mama (Brunswick 7166)

Fare Thee Well Blues was reissued on microgroove (LP), Origin Jazz Library 11 in 1965 on the anthology The Mississippi Blues No. 2, Delta 1929-’40; also on the CD anthology The Story of Pre-War Blues (P-Vine PCD 2772-75, from Japan); the anthology Origin & Legend Blues Series Volume 3: Mississippi, the Delta, East Coast; and on the movie soundtrack for Ghost World – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Calicott was recorded in the 1960s and appeared on numerous LPs and some CD reissues, along with some of his earlier recordings.

Cider (new) (banjo tuned A-DADE, key of D)
This melody, in essentially the form that Bruce plays it on Soon Be Time, currently can be heard all over the world. It was not that long ago that this melody, known by several related titles, was played solely in a quite small region. The charismatic and highly-musical personage known as Tommy Jarrell (1901-1985) probably is most responsible for its wide dissemination. When Tommy fiddled it on Down To the Cider Mill (County LP 713, released in 1968, recently reissued on CD also on the County label), the floodgates to its popularity and emulation were opened. Prior to its surge in popularity following its recording on vinyl, it could be heard primarily in Surry County, North Carolina – Tommy’s home turf – and across the mountain in Grayson and Carroll Counties, Virginia.

The first waxing of this catchy tune was made in Atlanta, Georgia on February 22, 1928 by a band from Galax, Virginia, Ernest Stoneman & The Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, as part of a skit called A Serenade in the Mountains, Part One (Victor 21518), where they called it Down To The Stillhouse To Get A Little Cider. Ernest Stoneman sang and played guitar, George Stoneman and Bolen Frost were on banjos and the fiddling was provided by Galax resident Eck Dunford (ca. 1880-1950), who executed it with a very crisp, clear sound. I feel that had this been released independently as a full track and not merely as part of a skit, it might have become much more popular earlier, but it had to wait for its moment in the spotlight until Tommy unleashed it. Despite the LP title (modeled on this tune’s name), Tommy’s recording was was listed on the LP as Cider Mill. If you went to Tommy’s house to hear it or play along, he usually would call it just plain Cider, but I also heard people reference it there as Stillhouse.

A few others from that area straddling the Blue Ridge Mountains have recorded since Tommy put out his first recording, and the reader may be familiar with some of these recordings. Matokie Slaughter, of Pulaski, Virginia, in Pulaski County, north of Galax, put a rendition on More Clawhammer Banjo (County LP 717, issued in 1969; reissued on CD as County 2717) as Stillhouse. Her rendition developed an urban cult following no doubt due to some of its eccentricities. She played an even more interesting version on the fiddle. The Camp Creek Boys issued a torrid rendition of Stillhouse on their eponymously-named County LP (709, on CD as County 2719). They were from Surry County, primarily.. Sidna (1890-1972) and Fulton Myers (1894-1979), of Five Forks, VA, near Galax, recorded Stillhouse for Peter Hoover. This recording recently came out on the Field Recordist’s Collective CD # 504. Delmar and Calvin Pendleton, of Woolwine in Patrick County, Va. recorded Stillhouse in 1974 for Ray Alden, who put it on the Visits LP (Heritage 33),.

Others of note and otherwise, and this is not an exhaustive list, who played it for collectors include: Norman Edmonds (1889-1976, as Stillhouse) of Hillsville, Va.; Fred Cockerham (1905-1980, Stillhouse) of Low Gap, Surry Co., NC; Luther Davis (1887-1986, Stillhouse) of Galax, Grayson Co., Va; Clovest Crotts (1913-1987, Stillhouse), of Cana, Va.; Taylor (1892-1979) and Stella (1894-1983, Stillhouse) Kimble of Laurel Fork, Carroll Co, Va; Earnest East (1917-2000. Stillhouse) of Surry Co., NC; Glen & Hurley Smith (Glen – 1888-1973, as Cider) of Grayson Co., Va; Bertie Mae Dickens (1903- , Going To the Stillhouse) of Ennice, NC; James Thompson (b. 1881, Stillhouse) of Meadows of Dan, recorded by Peter Hoover; Calvin Cole (b. 1908, as Cider) of Fancy Gap, Grayson Co., Va; Tinsley Clapp, of Glen Raven, NC, recorded it as Cider for Alan Jabbour in 1967; Ernest Stanley of Laurel Fork, Carroll, Co, VA as Stillhouse; and Rafe Brady of Surry Co, NC as Stillhouse. Every single one of them has some singular characteristics particular to the musicians playing it. Yet they are all the same piece, once a localized tune, now one for the world.

Cotton Eyed Joe (fiddle tuned AEAE, key of A)
Not only is this tune widely-dispersed, this title belongs to many different melodies. This essay will not delve into the variety of melodies with this soubriquet, but will concentrate on the melody, and its close relatives, that Bruce plays on Soon Be Time. Bruce says in his CD booklet that he models his on the tune as played by Fred Cockerham of Low Gap, Surry County, North Carolina. Fred played it, like many others in Surry County, in the key of A, in cross-tuning, AEAE, low to high string. I do not think this is a local tune, however, despite the many Surry Countians (and the Galaxians, across the mountain) who play it in a similar manner. You can hear Fred fiddle it as a member of the Camp Creek Boys, either on the LP (County 709) or on the CD reissue (County CD 2719). To my knowledge, no one asked Fred where he got it (“where’d it come from?”).

Fred learned his music from a variety of sources, including from family, neighbors, and elders in his local community, but he also was a traveling professional musician and kept up with “current hits” as well. It is likely he may have learned it from the radio or from a recording. We do know that this is how his longtime friend and fellow musician Tommy Jarrell learned Cotton Eyed Joe, and Fred’s and Tommy’s versions sound very similar. Barry Poss wrote, in the notes for Tommy’s LP Sail Away Ladies (County 756, reissued as CD 2724), that Tommy learned it from the radio “sometime after 1925.” Tommy’s mentor Charlie Lowe (b. 1878) had heard it on the radio, from a Nashville broadcast, and Tommy worked it out from Charlie’s playing. I would surmise that it was quite a bit after 1925 and that Barry was merely citing the opening of that window of opportunity, giving the date that country music radio had begun.

Some fiddlers who might have caught Charlie Lowe’s ear could have been Arthur Smith, Tommy Magness, or even Tommy Jackson. I don’t believe any of them played this piece in cross-tuning but hearing it on the radio and converting from a banjo version to fiddle, in the key of A, could easily wind up in cross-key A. The year 1925 does have a bit of significance in the history of this tune, as the title, and lyrics, was mentioned in Dorothy Scarborough’s book published that year, On The Trail of Negro Folksongs. There is a lot about this tune, not the least of which are the various lyric fragments, that strongly suggest African-American origins. To the best of my knowledge, none of the early recordings of this title using this melody or a close variation/variant are in the key of A. Most are in the key of G, albeit some are in some sort of crosstuning (such as GDAD).

The earliest recording was by Dykes’ Magic City Trio, 1927. Fiddler John Dykes was from Scott County, Virginia. Pope’s Arkansas Mountaineers recorded it in February 1928. Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers, the famed north Georgia ensemble, recorded it a couple months later. The Carter Brothers & Son, from Mississippi, recorded it in November 1928. The John Carson recording of this title had quite the different melody and was picked up by a lot of his fans, including North Carolinian Marcus Martin. This melody also appeared under other titles, so tracking this tune can get tricky. The Carter Brothers recorded it, in the same session with Cotton Eyed Joe, as Miss Brown! The Skillet Lickers and their related groups also recorded it under various titles, sometimes with ad hoc names in skits, but also as Citaco and Swamp Cat Rag, for instance Each of these, would, of course, have various permutations. Lowe Stokes knew the tune he had recorded as Citaco, in his younger days, as Down to the Wildwood To Shoot the Buffalo. Eldia Barbee, a Tennessee fiddler who knew Stokes and others of the Skillet Licker circle, played Citaco, but not in the low G tuning as they had. He put it up in A, in AEAE, similar to how Fred and Tommy played their Cotton Eyed Joe. Similar in pitch, but not melody, however. In any case, this is a lovely tune, in all pitches, with all the melodic variations, and is one to be relished.

On My Street
This being one of Bruce’s original tunes, he should be the one to flesh out any entry for it, but I did comment to him that I felt very strong influences from his investigations and love affair with African acoustic guitar, especially that of Jean Bosco Mwenda. He told me, “Of course!” Well, “Duh!” sez I. Of course!! You can get a nice dose of Jean Bosco on Rounder CD 5061 Mwenda wa Bayeke – Jean Bosco, African Guitar Legend, the Studio Album.

[Bruce says: Jean Bosco was one of the most revered of the west African fingerstyle guitar players. I've heard it said that his particular style was closely derived from imbera (a.k.a. kalimba, thumb piano) playing, and if you listen to them side by side, it makes a lot of sense. Jean Bosco's most famous piece, Masanga Njia, was recorded in 1950 for Gallotone Records, and has been reissued on numerous compilations. I also recorded it some years ago on my CD Lost Boy (Rounder Records).

There are other really great African players who follow similar styles and who you have to hear. The late Ali Farka Toure is one, but also a younger player Afel Bocoum, Boubacar ("Kar Kar") Traouré, Sekou Bembeya ("Diamond Fingers") Diabate, are Oliver Mtukudze are some.

A few years back there was a VHS released on Stefan Grossman's Vestapol labeled, titled African Fingerstyle Guitar. I don't know if it's available any longer, but find a copy if you can. Great stuff!]

John Brown’s Dream (banjo tuned G-GGBD, key of G)
The etiology of this tune family appears more problematic than that of Cotton Eyed Joe upon first glance. Nevertheless, we’ll attempt to delve into its origins and descent. Bruce, of course, learned it from Tommy Jarrell (1901-1985), of Toast, Surry County, North Carolina. You can hear Tommy play, in full band style, on the June Apple CD (Heritage 038), along with Kyle Creed on banjo, Bobby Patterson on guitar, and Audine Lineberry on bass. To hear him in a smaller ensemble, but no less powerful, check out Tommy & Fred: Best Fiddle-Banjo Duets (County CD 2702), with Tommy fiddling and Fred Cockerham on fretless banjo.

Tommy learned it from his daddy, Ben Jarrell. You can hear Ben fiddle it with Da Costa Woltz on clawhammer banjo as members of Da Costa Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters on Document CD 8023. Jarrell and Woltz had recorded this for the Gennett label in May 1927, which is the earliest recording of this tune by any name. Tony Russell shows in Country Music Records, a discography, as does Guthrie Meade in Country Music Sources, a 1924 session of Cowan Powers recording Brown’s Dream for Victor, but it was never issued. Tommy often related that his daddy, Ben, had “made John Brown’s Dream from [another local tune] Pretty Little Girl”. Though that is the Jarrell story, other areas of the country where this melody has existed at least as long weigh in with different origins. Franklin George, from southern West Virginia, plays Harv Brown’s Dream, a veritable sound-alike to JBD, and avers that this was the earlier tune and the title was changed later on. He learned it from regional fiddler Jim Farthing. You can hear Frank fiddle it in The Cedar Point String Band (Roane Records CD-101).

However, in most of West Virginia, when you hear these melodic strains, the piece usually is called Jimmy Johnson (Bring the Jug Around the Hill), which someone from Glenville, WV once told me should be the state anthem. Clark and Luches Kessinger recorded this as Johnny Bring the Jug ‘Round the Hill for Brunswick in 1929, and which can be heard on Kessinger Brothers Volume 1 (Document CD 8010). One state westward, in Kentucky, we found Lewis County native Buddy Thomas (1937-1976) playing Stillhouse Branch, which he also knew as Brown Stream, both his titles alluding to moonshine. Buddy told Mark Wilson that he felt that the Brown’s Dream title was a corruption of the title he knew. He learned it from his cousin, Perry Riley (1893-1973). You can hear Buddy play on his CD Kitty Puss (Rounder 0032).

Stepping back a bit, we must note that The Sweet Brothers and Ernest Stoneman recorded I Am Gonna Marry That Pretty Little Girl in 1929 for Gennett, but it was rejected. Fortunately a test pressing survived so that it has made it to vinyl and digital media. Herbert and Earl Sweet were from Damascus, Virginia, Ernest Stoneman from Galax. Rather than go into miniscule further detail, I will present a veritable litany of titles and the artists who played them, and one could say they are all playing John Brown’s Dream.

Dykes’ Magic City Trio (John Dykes, fiddle), Red Steer; Crockett’s Kentucky Mountaineers (George Crockett, fiddle), Little Rabbit (conflated with Rabbit Where’s Your Mammy); The Roan Mountain Hill Toppers (Joe Birchfield, fiddle) Brown’s Dream; Ward Jarvis, Melvin Wine, and many other West Virginians, Jimmy Johnson; Benton Flippen, Pretty Little Girl; William H. Stepp, Old Hen She Cackled; Ed Haley, Brownlow’s Dream; and Luther Strong, Old Hen Cackled. To add a bit more confusion, Marion Thede printed another variant of it in her The Fiddle Book (page 53) as Give the Fiddler a Dram, attributed to “G. Blevins, Bryan County,” presumably in Oklahoma. I’ve come across other titular variations on this theme over the years, but don’t have them at my fingertips at this very moment, so maybe we can add to this list as I find suitable subjects. Or perhaps we should lay this to rest, “The devil is dead!”

Three Forks of Cheat (fiddle tuned AEAC#, key of A)
Burl Hammons, Bruce’s source for this lovely tune, was born on the 25th of February 1908 and died in January 1993 in Marlinton, Pocahontas County, West Virginia. He was one of several family fiddlers who played this “atmospheric” piece, by which I mean that the tune was not necessarily intended to be used for dancing (though it would make an interesting flatfooting tune), but was for performance or contemplation. Some of the contemporaries of Burl’s who were recorded playing it include Lee Hammons (born 29 May 1886, died December 1980 in Hillsboro, Pocahontas County) and Sherman Hammons (born 9 September 1903, died 03 September 1988). Burl said he learned it from his uncle Pete Hammons. Burl’s uncle Edden Hammons (1874-1975) can be heard playing it on The Edden Hammons Collection Volume 2 CD (WVU Press SA-2), from instantaneous disk recordings made by Louis Watson Chappell in 1947. It is presumed that Edden’s son James (considered by many in the family to be the best fiddler of all) also played it, though no recording of him doing so has survived.

Burl can be heard playing it on The Hammons Family – A Study of a West Virginia Family’s Traditions (AFS L65-L66) LP set, reissued as a Rounder CD The Hammons Family:
The Traditions of a West Virginia Family and Their Friends. It should be obvious that this is not a “static” piece, but was meant to be modified as one plays along. In listening to the various Hammonses playing it, this becomes more concrete, and listening to multiple recordings of Burl playing it, one can see how this family treated their tunes as being highly dynamic, ever changing and mutating. Bruce has captured this aspect so completely and beautifully.

Checking the geographical resources, one sees that a fork of the Cheat River runs through Randolph county, starting in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, the latter being one of the counties that was home to many of the Hammonses. One also will note the importance of rivers as a means of transport, and ultimately survival, to those residing in these rugged environs. The names of these rivers and branches have become memorialized in tunes and songs from this region as well: Cherry River, Cranberry River, the Elk River. At the present time, it is difficult to come by much of the music of the Hammons Family, but a non-profit organization that is behind The Hammons Legacy Project is methodically making available selections of material chosen from field recordings of various family members made by Dwight Diller and Wayne Howard, I believe beginning in the late 1960s and continuing through the early 1980s. More information can be found at Dwight’s website, http://www.dwightdiller.com.