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Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
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Item Title
Shady Grove
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
"Shady Grove" is usually known in the Upper South as a song with a floating assemblage of lyrics. But Henry Reed's "Shady Grove" is not just a instrumental version of a song; it is a classic instrumental tune. Its first strain is a variant of an old and widespread British and American air, showing up in such disparate places as the British "Boyne Water" march and some Appalachian variants of the ballad "Barbara Allen." "Boyne Water" refers to the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and the tune appears in America as early as 1786, in "Henry Beck's Flute Book," a manuscript tunebook in the Library of Congress. For typical sets, see Johnson, "Scots Musical Museum" (1853 edition), vol. 2, 363 (#351) and vol. 4, 325; Joyce, "Old Irish Folk Music and Songs" (1909), #377; "O'Neill's Music of Ireland", #260. A related set in "Old Irish Folk Music and Songs", #58, "The Foggy Dew," may offer a clue to the "Shady Grove" connection, for a set fiddled by J. H. Chisholm of Greenwood, Virginia, is shaped more like Henry Reed's set and is entitled "The Foggy Dew." Henry Reed's second strain is also an old air and corresponds to the usual Appalachian song "Shady Grove," though his instrumental set does not begin the low strain on the tonic as the song normally does. A notable feature of Henry Reed's set is its beginning with the high strain (which is also true of Chisholm's "Foggy Dew"). The British "Boyne Water" march typically begins with a low strain and goes on to the high strain corresponding to Henry Reed's. But Henry Reed begins with the high strain, a stylistic choice that is particularly characteristic of the old Upper South frontier.
Key: A
Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2
Phrase Structure: ABCD QRC'D (abac a'def d'd"qr a'def )
Compass: 9
Stylistic features: Lively pace; Oscar Wright played it slower and more plaintively.
Spoken: HENRY REED: Do you know that?/ALAN JABBOUR: Yeah, I sure do. My grandmother from East Tennessee used to sing that to me./HENRY REED: "Shady Grove."/ALAN JABBOUR: "Shady Grove."/HENRY REED: [Laughs]
Recording chronology: 036
Related Tune(s): Boyne Water
Related Tune(s): Barbara Allen
Related Tune(s): The Foggy Dew
Duration: 1 minute, 2 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:28
Digital ID
afcreed 13033b28
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcreed.13033b28