Lost Girl: Old Time Mountain Tunes and Ballads features fiddle and banjo tunes predominantly from West Virginia and North Carolina. I've tried to give particular representation to some of West Virginia's regional "family traditions". Different traditions or distinctive sounds of music developed throughout West Virginia as certain musically gifted families settled into particular areas. Geographic isolation and distinctive personalities contributed to the development of regional "styles". Particularly in the indigenous fiddle tunes of West Virginia one can feel the edge of a piercing lonesomeness and anger. Life was hard for these folks and continues to be for so many in West Virginia.
Fiddling came to the mountains with early Scots-Irish immigrants. At times, one can hear the remnants of a Celtic influence. Yet, the distinctive rhythm in mountain fiddling owes a considerable debt to to other sources. First, Native American drumming and singing. For many of the earliest settlers in the musical families of West Virginia their most regular human contact was with native Americans who followed the Seneca Trail as well as the river valleys through their seasonal hunting grounds in the mountains. There is a shrillness in the indigenous tunes of West Virginia that I can only suspect developed by hearing Native American singers camped up the river.
Second, African-American fiddlers and banjo-ers also had a profound influence in all of North American music. They remain largely unknown with the exception of a few legendary vagrants and escaped slaves just passing through.
In the mountains, the fiddle was the instrument of distinction largely because of size and ease of transport and its European ancestry. The banjo is an African instrument that found it's way to the mountains in the wake of the institution of slavery. Banjos were as easy to craft out of a stick of wood and a gourd as fiddles were out of boxes. In the late 1880's into the early Twentieth Century it became a very popular instrument for women and children. Banjos were factory produced and department store sold across the U.S. Indeed, it was the banjo not the "Roy Roger's Guitar" that went West with the railroad. This work contains several fiddle and banjo duets, a combination of instrumentation oddly late to mountain music. Fiddlers and banjo minstrels were common features of Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century Americana but the two rarely got together.
This work is a homemade project, a "busker's CD" made to raise money for a PAN trip St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Owen Sound, Ontario took in July 2014 to Nicaragua to conduct medical clinics in rural areas. I cannot say that for any of these songs that I sat down and learned them note for note though attempt was certainly made. In the Old Time tradition tunes are learned by ear and committed to memory. Therefore, a good ear and a good memory are helpful. Both of my ear and my memory have their limitations. I played all the instruments and Apple's Garage Band made me a one man band. I owe a debt of gratitude to two West Virginians who have freely given to me what was freely given to them, the gift of this music, Dwight Diller and Douglas VanGundy.
Westfork Gals
This is a popular tune around in West Virginia. In the key of D, it makes a good square dance tune. I've included two versions of it, my own Dwight Diller influenced rendition of the more commonly known tune and a version of it accredited to Lee Triplett of southern West Virginia. Banjo: aDADE. Fiddle: ADAE.
Sourwood Mountain
This is another popular tune with many variations. The lyrics for the verses are as variant as the tune is in the tradition. Banjo: aEAC#E Fiddle: AEAE.
That Lonesome Road
Originally recorded by Gaither Carlton of Wilkes County, North Carolina as Look Down That Lonesome Road. He was the father-in-law of American national treasure Doc Watson. It can be found on the Smithsonian Folkways recording The Doc Watson Family. Fiddle: GDAE
Cousin Sally Brown
From Willard Watson on the same Folkways recording above. Banjo: aDADE
Horny Ewe
Pronounced Horny O. This is a tune from the Carpenter family recorded by fiddling legend Ernie Carpenter, the last in the family line. Many of the Carpenter tunes can be found on the Augusta Heritage Center recording Ernie Carpenter: Old Time Fiddle Tunes from the Elk River. The Carpenter family came to West Virginia pre-Civil War settling on the Elk River in the area of Clay and Braxton Counties. Banjo: aEAC#E. Fiddle: AEAE.
Sail Away Ladies
A popular tune Uncle Dave Macon tune. Macon was an Old Time Banjo player of vaudeville fame. He brought Old Time to radio and was the first big star of the Grand Ole Opry.
Banjo: aEAC#E. Fiddle: AEAE.
Johnny Booger
A signature tune of tune of Mr. Lee Hammons of Thomastown, WV, a hollar on the outskirts of Marlinton, WV. Legend has it that Lee Hammons quit playing music publicly due to being upset with the locals no longer wanting to hear their own traditional music for what they were hearing on the radio. Alan Jabbour recorded Mr. Hammons along with the other Hammons family for the Library of Congress recording The Hammons Family: Traditions of a West Virginia Family and Friends. Banjo: aDADE
Greasy String
Another Lee Hammons tune I learned from Dwight Diller. Banjo: aEAC#E. Fiddle: AEAE.
Old Christmas Morning
As close to French Carpenter's rendition that I can get it without the recording. Canadian Erynn Marshall, a Clifftop Fiddle Champion, has a more pleasant version of this on Youtube and on her recording with The Haints, Shout Monah. Fiddle: AEAE.
I Went A'roving
I have no idea where I got this one from, some old-time banjo cd probably. The story it tells reaches way back in the music tradition of the British Isle's just search Turtle Dove or Blackest Crow. There's some hints of Robbie Burns' My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose. Banjo: gDGDE @ capo 2. Fiddle: GDGD.
Diller's Green Willis
I like to think the tune Green Willis commemorates a new or green Civil War soldier by name of Willis. There was also a Whig representative Willis Green in the Kentucky State Legislature 1836-37. I call this Diller's Green Willis because I learned it on the fiddle from a very slow version of his on the banjo. Accordingly, it bears little resemblance to the tune Green Willis. Banjo: aDADE. Fiddle: ADAE.
Hang Me, O Hang Me
A traditional tune I picked up from Diller. I play it on an old fretless banjo that I thank Doug VanGundy for. I'm not sure he got the better end of that trade. Banjo: gCGCD.
Gunboat
From Ernie Carpenter. A key of A version similar to Melvin Wine's key of D Goin' Down to Georgio. Banjo: aEAEF# @ capo 4. Fiddle: AEAE.
Fly Around My Blue-eyed Miss
A very popular tune in Southern Old Time Mountain music. Banjo: aDADE. Fiddle: ADAE.
Lost Girl
From Melvin Wine. He said he learned it from John Cogar when Cogar was in his '90's. One of Melvin's oldest tunes. I've slowed it down a bit. Fiddle: GDAE
Walking in the Parlour
Another signature tune of Mr. Lee Hammons. Banjo: gCGCD.
Going Downtown
A Wilson Douglas tune I picked up from a John Morris recording. John doesn't play it quite like Wilson did. Banjo: gCGCD. Fiddle GDGD.
Mr. Mc Come Home (Hector the Hero)
Living in Ontario I've been exposed to some fine Scottish fiddling from the Maritimes. This is a James Scott Skinner tune from the 1800's. We had a cat a few years back named Mr. Mc (short for McFurson named after John McPherson, a fiddler made famous by the Robbie Burn's Poem McPherson's Rant. The nick name Mc also owes its namesake to Mr. Mc Sterrett of Rockbridge County, VA, one of the finest human beings who ever lived.). We didn't like him to stay out at night so quite often I would stand on the front stoop and play this and he would come home. Mc died in my arms in August of 2012. Fiddle: AEAE or GDGD.
God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign
A Carter Family Tune that Dwight likes to play. Banjo: gDGDE @ capo 2. Fiddle: GDGD.
Rocky Mountain Goat
From John Morris. Banjo: aDADE. Fiddle: ADAE.
Yew Piney Mountain
This tune probably owes its origin to some ancient member of the Carpenter family. The are many versions today as it found its way into about all of the West Virginia family traditions. I don't know who to accredit with how I play it so I'll just say it's burned in the heart of everyone who has ever stood atop the Yew Piney Mountains in Pocahontas County, West Virginia felling lonely, angry, and isolated.
Fiddle: AEAE or GDGD
Sandy Boys
A Hammons family tune commemorating the days the family lived along the Sandy River in Southwestern West Virginia. The words are a later addition which Dwight said he cobbled in and we'll take that with a grain of salt. Banjo: aEAC#E. Fiddle: AEAE.
Granddad's Favourite
From Ernie Carpenter. Like all of Ernie Carpenter's tunes I've learned, I don't play this one quite right. So buy his Augusta Heritage recording. Fiddle: AEAE.
Waiting on the Boatsman
An old hymn from Melvin Wine. Banjo: aDADE. Fiddle: ADAE.
