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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
Collector: Jabbour, Karen Singer
Performer: Reed, Henry; fiddle
Created/Published
July 17, 1967
Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Virginia (Giles County)
Notes
Henry Reed distinctly calls this "Over the Waterfalls" on microphone on another occasion (AFS 13703b08), but he used the singular here, and 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-(pause)-r-2-1r-2r-1
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQ'S (abac abde qrsc qr'tu)
Compass: 11
Spoken: [beginning of tune]/ALAN JABBOUR: Well, go ahead. I'd like to hear it again./HENRY REED: [Laughs][after tune]/HENRY REED: I, I like that old piece, too./ALAN JABBOUR: I do too./HENRY REED: That's "Over the Waterfall."/ALAN JABBOUR: "Over the Waterfall."
Recording chronology: 140
Related Tune(s): Chinchbug (Bedbug Has No Wings at All, But He Gets There Just the Same)
Duration: 1 minute, 21 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 3A, AFS 13705A:45
Digital ID
afcreed 13705a45
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcreed.13705a45