by Mark Wilson

See Kerry Blech, Appalachian Master – FRC751

2. 2. Big-Eyed Rabbit. From Joe Birchfield and the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. To me this sounds like a version of the well-known “John Brown’s Dream” (aka “Johnny, Bring the Jug Around the Hill).  Indeed, the Hilltoppers play a fairly standard “John Brown’s Dream” on their FRC “In Concert” release (FRC201).  I wonder if the modal fine strain that Kerry plays didn’t arise as a bit of fiddler’s happenstance on Kerry’s source recording.
   4. Chillicothe Beauty comes from a recording of Forrest Pick of Portsmouth, Ohio, who played in an Old-Timers Orchestra with Jimmie Wheeler and was a familiar figure to both Buddy Thomas and Roger Cooper. He had already been recorded by Ray Alden and Barbara Kunkle by the time that Gus Meade and I contacted him in 1973. Fortunately, Kunkle’s recordings had held up well when John Harrod finally retrieved them from her twenty years later. Sometime in the early 2000’s, I sent Kerry an auxiliary hard drive of an early version of our North American Traditions (NAT) Archive (see https://fieldrecorder.org/nat/ for a link), and he must have learned this tune from there.  Here’s a link to  the source recording:   https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/psctin6fdirykidgbw2z7/19-Chilocothe-Beauty.wav?rlkey=jzxs3p5vhhr5aiihqqpkyuqou&st=v6wnk84h&dl=0  Roger Cooper plays a nice version learned from the same source on Rounder 0380.
   6. 

      Morrison Brothers – Courtesy Morrison Family

      Dry and Dusty comes from Lon Jordan, of Farmington, Arkansas, recorded by Vance Randolph in the early 1940’s, when he persuaded the Library of Congress to loan him a disc recorder so that he could capture some of the many fiddlers that he knew (including the great Bill Bilyeu, to whom insufficient attention has been paid). Kerry somehow managed to secure copies of many of these sessions which he shared with me. I find Kerry’s brief description of Randolph a bit odd, as Vance was very erudite man, married to the folklorist Mary Celestia Parler. “Dry and Dusty” is a tune that is well known across the entire south. The present version is set in AEAE, but most older versions are set in ADAD, including the Morrison Twin Brothers’ versionfrom 1930 on Victor 40323. Absie Morrison told Judith McCulloh that the tune was also called “Napoleon’s Charge” and constitutes a companion to “Bonaparte’s Retreat.” Curiously, a version of “Bonaparte’s Charge and Retreat” that Alva Greene (from faraway Kentucky) provided to Gus Meade and me is quite similar to the Ozark tune. (Alva’s recordings can be heard on FRC811 In Old Kentucky, which is Vol. 11 of the Survey of Traditional Music from the North American Traditions Collection.)   Modern fiddlers often reset the tune in the key of E, to recapture some of the droning effects of the older DDAD treatments. The Slippery Hill website contains a large number of recordings extracted from Kerry’s tape collection, including this one: https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/dry-and-dusty

   8. 

      Jehile Kirkhuff – Courtesy Richie Piggott

      Dansa Terpsichora. A rather sophisticated tune from the rather sophisticated Jehile Kirkhuff, recorded by Frank Dalton. Musical tributes to the Greek goddess of dance were once rather popular.   For a good profile of Kirkhuff, see:  Ken Oakley, Jehile-The Blind Fiddler from Lawton, Pennsylvania.  Here is Kirkhuff’s original: https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/dansa-terpsichora

   10. Smokey Hole. When Mike Seeger was still in high school, in 1952, he encountered an African-American fiddler named Will Adams on the street in Kensington, Maryland and managed to record a number of Adams’s enticing tunes. As Kerry notes, recordings of this vintage and quality are very precious.  To the best of my knowledge, the only issued selection by  Adams is “Tie Your Dog, Sally Gal” on  Mike Seeger’s Folkways anthology Close to Home.
   12. Salt River (?) A remarkable unnamed double tonic tune also from Mike Seeger’s tape of Will Adams. Kerry once ran an entire workshop devoted to Will Adams at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington.
   14. Johnson’s Girl. From John Lusk, Murphy Gribble and Albert York. Another priceless specimen of African-American fiddle music. The original 1946 recording by Margot Mayo can be heard on https://www.gribbleluskandyork.org/. Stu Jamison, who accompanied Mayo at this session and recorded the group further himself in 1949, was a friend of Kerry’s and had made these recordings available to him.  Other recordings of this trio comprise half of the commercial release Altamont: Black String Band Music from the Library of Congress (Rounder 0238).  “Johnson Gal” by the Leake County Revelers may share some weak resemblance with this tune.
   16. 

       Lon Jordan Photo by Vance Randolph

       Fever River. Also from Lon Jordan. https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/fever-river

   18. Indian Fancy. From John Baltzell, who lived in Mt Vernon, Ohio and had learned many of his tunes from the famous minstrel Dan Emmett. Coming from northern Ohio himself, I think that this is why Kerry was intrigued by Baltzell’s early recordings. Excerpted from the 1923 “Drunken Sailor Medley” (Edison 51548) https://drdosido.net/ddcd/78-earliest-a.html.  I’m not sure where the
       

       John Baltzell – Courtesy Fiddle Hangout

       tune identification came from (possibly the Edison files).

   20. Throw the Old Cow Over the Fence comes from Dr. Humphrey Bate and His Possum Hunters (Vocalion 5238). The fiddler is W.J. “Bill” Barrett. According to Snake Chapman, fiddlers would often drift from group to group on the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts of the 1930’s. (Bate’s normal fiddler was the well-known Oscar Stone.)
   22. Greenback Dollar Bill. Also from Humphrey Bate. It was also recorded, at a slower pace, by the great Weems String Band. At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9LXaovsKGA, Kerry narrates the sad story of the record collector who “borrowed” two unissued home recordings of Dick Weems from the Weems family and never returned them.
   24. 8th of January. Yet another characteristic selection from Humphrey Bate. Unlike the previous tune, “The Eighth of January” (which honors an 1815 victory by Andrew Jackson victory over Sir Edward Pakenham near New Orleans) is well-known among fiddlers everywhere. However, this rendition is quite eccentric in its phrasing, which many of us consider to be charming!
   26. Marthy, Won’t You Have Some Good Old Cider comes from Gaither Carlton and can be heard on Rounder 129, The Doc Watson Family Tradition, recorded by Ralph Rinzler. As Kerry notes, this selection represents a charming but fairly standard rendition of the well-known “Rochester Schottische.” Normally, the title “Paddy Won’t You Drink Some Good Old Cider?” is associated with another tune altogether, as recorded by the Skillet Lickers and by Andy Palmer with Jimmy Johnson’s String Band.  Kerry once pointed out to me that the tune that was mislabeled as “Paddy on the Turnpike” on Barbara Kunkle’s recording of Forrest Pick was another member of this same tune family.
   28. Old Richmond is from Ernest Stanley, of Laurel Fork, Virginia, who was recorded by Alan Jabbour. This is a version of “Richmond Cotillion” as recorded by Da Costa Waltz’s Southern Broadcasters, featuring Ben Jarrell on fiddle.  The tune is widely known, often as “Green Mountain Polka.”
   30. Spinal (Spangler’s) Twist. Ray Alden includes an excellent background sketch of Taylor Kimble and his family in the notes that accompany FRC106, The Kimble and Wagoner Families. The tune itself strikes me as more a cousin to “Mississippi Sawyer,” rather than any relative of the usual “Rachel.” Kerry’s source is an out-of-print Heritage LP, Eight Miles Apart; it can also be found at https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/rachel.   The Slippery Hill site mentioned above includes the parenthetical “Spangler’s” comment, which Kerry presumably added, referring to Babe Spangler, who was a noted fiddler from Patrick County, Virginia.
   32. Sally in the Green Corn. Originally from Mingo County, West Virginia, John Hannah knew Ed Haley and some of Haley’s tunes. Kerry told me about Hannah when I was teaching in Columbus, Ohio, but despite a lot of earnest efforts, Hannah would never agree to a meeting. I recorded the tune often in the Midwest as “Old Dubuque,” but it was familiar in Kentucky as well.    The older “book name” for the tune is “Phiddlin’ Phil,” and it was recorded as such by the Canadian fiddler Don Messer.  On his FRC CD (FRC409), Hannah names the selection as “Down in the Green Corn.”    Kerry’s own recording of John Hannah can be found here: https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/sally-greencorn. 
   34. 

       Bob Walters, Dwight & Clarence Lamb

       Rocky Road to Jordan. In 1994 or so, I persuaded Rounder Records to pay for a professional dub of all of Dwight Lamb’s recordings of the great Nebraska fiddler Bob Walters, for eventual release on that label. I completed both the mastering and notes a few years later, but there were delays, and ultimately Dwight’s friend Bill Peterson released the set as “The Champion” on his own Missouri Valley Music label.  Since that set now appears to be out of print, here’s a link to the original recording: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ohkktqip862tmvyfg2c38/13.-Rocky-Road-to-Jordan.wav?rlkey=7dqxk63wiev04p8lzqexvtpls&st=pyrg25ag&dl=0.  Dwight’s own excellent rendition can be found on Rounder 0429.

   36. 

       J.W. Day – Photo by Doris Ulman

       The Wild Wagoner. This (under its original title “Wagner”) formed half of a brace of tunes (the other being “Gray Eagle”) that honored a famous horse race that was held in in Louisville in 1838. Both tunes, in numerous variants, are commonly played today.   James W. Day was a well-traveled blind fiddler who lived a few doors away from Ed Haley in Ashland, Kentucky and like Haley made his living by traveling widely to court days to play for tips (although rarely in the same locales, insofar as I could make out from my interviews). He was also a good singer and was probably the author of the well-known ballad “The Rowan County Crew” (which his brother Robert recorded for Alan Lomax in Cincinnati).  The eccentric folklore promoter Jean Thomas took Day and his wife Rosie under her wing and promoted them as “Jilson Setters and his wife Rhuhamie,” leading to strange passages in her Ballad Makin’ in the Mountains of Kentucky where both Day and Setters appear in distinct guises.  I find Day’s Victor recording particularly intriguing because, courtesy of Victor’s superior microphoning, you can clearly hear the wrist shakes or “cuts” in his playing (which are completely muffled in his later Library of Congress recordings). Based upon my experiences in Cape Breton and with Dwight Lamb, I have come to presume that such ornaments comprised a staple of older dance fiddling.  As Dwight used to say, “They really make a tune.”

   38. Old Christmas Morning. This first version comes from Lee Hammons. Lee and Sherman Hammons were both members of a celebrated West Virginia musical family, including the remarkable Edden Hammons (whose 1949 recordings by the folklorist Louis Chappell are available from the West Virginia Press). Lee and Sherman each have their own CDs on the FRC label (701 and 736). “Old Christmas” refers to January 6, which was the date of the holiday before the Gregorian calendar was adopted, in the sixteenth century.
   40. Old Christmas Morning. From Sherman Hammons. Wilson Douglas recorded a nice rendition of this tune (learned from French Carpenter) for Gus Meade and me on Rounder  0047  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k4sc7fa8r7jht3loxdu5u/11-Old-Christmas-Morning.wav?rlkey=8w3avmlnvmxpznqu8s1n23s3u&st=m6u9qb4o&dl=0
   42. R’ar Up comes from a tape of George Mert Reves of Cookson, Oklahoma, as recorded by his son Merle in the 1960s. Kerry obtained his copy of the tape from the folklorist Steve Green. According to Kerry’s notes, Reves had been born on March 15, 1894, and died in January 1992. He apparently had lived some earlier part of his life in Arkansas. His repertory included a large number of older tunes, such as the two selections that Kerry has chosen here. Reves’s original version may be heard at https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/rare.
   44. 

       Horace Foreman, 1934 – photo by John Lomax

       Boatman’s Dance. From Horace Foreman, who is identified on the Library of Congress website as a Cajun fiddler from Morse, Louisiana. The song was published by Dan Emmett in 1843 and became a staple on the minstrel stage, although the tune itself is undoubtedly older. Ed Haley recorded a spectacular setting, available from Springfed Recordings (https://springfedrecords.com/ed-ella-haley).   Foreman’s 1934 original recording (labeled as “Boatman Dance”) can be found at  http://www.lomax1934.com/dance-boatman-dance.html

   46. Pond Creek from Owen “Snake” Chapman. Kerry must have learned this from a hard drive that I sent him, as I never managed to get it publicly issued. Snake couldn’t recall whether he had picked this up years ago somewhere around Pond Creek, Kentucky or whether it was an early composition of his own that he had forgotten about.  Structurally, it resembles early twentieth century concert pieces like Harry Lincoln’s “Repasz Band March.”  Pond Creek was a mining camp close to Snake’s home, where Ed Haley used to play for the miners on payday. Here’s Snake’s original:  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lqfaj6y5kjqqvsv2h23wd/10-Pond-Creek.wav?rlkey=hhgsd80q3e1txngtbkc49w2mm&st=2q1zusdm&dl=0
   47. Green Fields of America. Kerry doesn’t provide a source for this, but it appears to come from one Lonnie Corsbie from Laurel Fork, NC, as recorded by Alan Jabbour (https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/green-fields-america). The tune appears in a number of early tune books and has been heard in tradition quite often. This version is unusual in its internal key change.  Wilson Douglas knew a variant as “Old Mother Flanagan,” a title that sometimes carries ribald lyrics.  Michael Coleman played an Irish setting that has now become canonical within those circles.
   49. Bonaparte’s March Over the Rhine. Again, from George Reves. The tune he plays is not the standard one usually encountered under this title. https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/bonapartes-march-over-rhine
   51. Midnight Waltz. Brothers Charlie and Lee Stripling of Kennedy, Alabama recorded this beautiful tune in 1929 on Vocalion 0238. As Kerry mentions, Charlie’s son Lee eventually moved to Seattle while Kerry lived there, and Kerry, at the price of some frustration, assisted Lee in making a CD (Hogs Picking Up Acorns) for Phil and Vivian William’s Voyager label (349).   The Stripling Brothers’ original 78 can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRmQDRqk3W8