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Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
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Item Title
George Booker
Alternate Title(s)
Marquis of Huntley's Farewell
Camp Chase
Author/Creator
Collector: Jabbour, Alan
Collector: Jabbour, Karen Singer
Performer: Reed, Henry; fiddle
Created/Published
June 18, 1966
Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Virginia (Giles County)
Notes
This tune began life, so far as can be told, as a Scottish strathspey entitled "The Marquis of Huntly's Farewell," the title it was given in William Marshall's "Collection of Strathspey Reels" (ca. 1781). By the early nineteenth century it already had taken hold in rural Virginia, now named "George Booker" in honor of a Virginia Revolutionary War leader; a set under that name appears in Knauff's "Virginia Reels" (1839). The tune in that set, as in Henry Reed's, retains the melodic structure and circular form of the Scottish sets. Henry Reed's performance is also notable for the inclusion of sixteenth-note triplets and thirty-second notes, a feature of left-hand technique on the fiddle that is often associated with British fiddling but here appears to have a toehold in Virginia as well. "George Booker" has an interesting history on the old frontier of the Upper South, having been recast as "Camp Chase" to celebrate the escape from Camp Chase, Ohio, during the Civil War by West Virginian Sol Carpenter. French Carpenter plays a set and tells the story on the LP recording "Old-Time Music from Clay County, West Virginia" (Folk Promotions 11567-11568), and another version of tale and tune performed by Burl Hammons appears on "The Hammons Family" (Library of Congress, AFS L65-66), which cites additional variants.
Key: A
Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (low-high, 4-4)
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQC (abac abdc' qrst qrdc')
Compass: 15
Stylistic features: Circular tune (each strain ends on note other than tonic).
Spoken: ALAN JABBOUR: Whew! You're getting a lot of notes in that./HENRY REED: [Laughs]
Recording chronology: 035
Duration: 1 minute, 8 seconds
Subject
Breakdowns
Reels
Fiddle tunes
Instrumentals--fiddle
Ethnography
Music
United States--Virginia--Giles County--Glen Lyn
Object Type
Medium
sound recording
Language
English
Call Number
AFC LWO 5031 reel 3B, AFS 13033B:27
Digital ID
afcreed 13033b27
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcreed.13033b27