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Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
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Item Title
Over the Waterfall
Alternate Title(s)
Eggs and Marrowbones
Mercian Titterary-Ary-A
The Job of Journeywork
Author/Creator
Collector: Jabbour, Alan
Performer: Reed, Henry; fiddle
Created/Published
May 06, 1967
Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Virginia (Giles County)
Notes
Henry Reed distinctly calls this "Over the Waterfalls" on microphone, but he used the singular on other occasions, because that is how the fieldnotes from both of his performances record it. He said he learned it when he was a young boy from performers in a traveling show, Teets's Show (probably a circus or medicine show). The tune has a long history on both sides of the Atlantic as an instrumental tune. It is also used as a melody for the widespread British and American song "Eggs and Marrowbones" (see Laws, "American Balladry from British Broadsides", Q2). This humorous song involves an old man pushing his old wife into the water, so the title "Over the Waterfall" may show a close link between the song and the instrumental tune. Fuller notes on the song and on other instrumental versions appear under "Mercian Tittery-Ary-A" in "The Hammons Family" (Library of Congress, AFS L65-66). The fiddle tune was recorded under this name (in the singular) by the Hollow Rock String Band (Kanawha 311). Through that recording, and in parallel radiation through live performances and tapes, Henry Reed's tune has been widely recirculated across the country, appearing now in the repertories of perhaps thousands of musicians. This is only the most dramatic example of the direct influence of Henry Reed's repertory on the old-time music revival in the later twentieth century. Henry Reed plays another tune, "Chinchbug," that has a similar first strain to "Over the Waterfall."
Key: D
Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Rendition: 1-2-1r-2-1-2-1r-2
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQ'S (abac abde qrsc qr'tu)
Compass: 11
Stylistic features: Henry Reed corrects himself on a note at the end.
Spoken: HENRY REED: "Over the Waterfalls."/ALAN JABBOUR: "Over the Waterfalls."/HENRY REED: Yeah, at the--I heard that at Teets's Show when I was just a little thing, about five or six years old./ALAN JABBOUR: To the what?/HENRY REED: Teets's Show./ALAN JABBOUR: What is that?/HENRY REED: It's like a show that come around through the country./ALAN JABBOUR: Oh.
Recording chronology: 108
Related Tune(s): Chinchbug (Bedbug Has No Wings at All, But He Gets There Just the Same)
Duration: 1 minute, 32 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 5379 reel 1B, AFS 13703B:08
Digital ID
afcreed 13703b08
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcreed.13703b08