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Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
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Item Title
Cripple Creek
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
"Cripple Creek" is so widespread in the twentieth century that it seems as if it must be very old, and its occurrence as a song, in play-parties, and in dance music reinforces the sense of antiquity and ubiquity. In addition to the original distribution of the tune, bluegrass banjo versions in the last half of the twentieth century have recycled it to new audiences. But the tune may not be so old. There was a gold strike in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in the 1890s, and since there seem to be no versions of the song or tune antedating the gold strike, it is reasonable to presume that it inspired the song. Henry Reed's story of first hearing it from a Texan in the coal country along Tug Fork, where he and his brother were working around 1900, fits neatly with the presumption that the song and tune arrived around then from further west.
Key: A
Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-2)
Rendition: 1-2r-1r-2r-1r-2r
Phrase Structure: ABA'C QC' (abac a'bde qrde)
Compass: 11
Spoken: [before tune]/ALAN JABBOUR: Well, now I know a tune that I've heard you play, but I never bothered to--never got around to recording it; that's "Cripple Creek." Maybe you . . . ./HENRY REED: [Laughs]. Nettie used to dance that when I played it./NETTIE REED: Oh, you all don't believe him./[General laughter]/JAMES REED: I did dance a few times up yonder so I quit that. I got in trouble every time I start./KAREN JABBOUR: Why's that?/JAMES REED: Somebody gets mad, they start fighting, so I quit./[General laughter]/HENRY REED: I was another place . . . .[after tune]/JAMES REED: When it goes like that, it sounds pretty./ALAN JABBOUR: It does./JAMES REED: Yeah./ALAN JABBOUR: What was the occasion?/HENRY REED: Well, me and my brother was a-doing the blacksmith work at--can't tell you the name of the place, it was right, right, right next to Tug River./JAMES REED: Tug River?/HENRY REED: It was right next to the Hatfields. And the fellow, fellow come from Texas, who played that. That's the first time I ever heard it./ALAN JABBOUR: Who was that? Who was it? Do you remember his name?/HENRY REED: No, I don't remember his name. He didn't stay long enough. He just stayed two or three days, and he was gone. I don't know where he went to./ALAN JABBOUR: When was it?/HENRY REED: I was sixteen years old. Long time ago./ALAN JABBOUR: Let's see, what year would that have been?/JAMES REED: Sixteen, that would've been seventy, no, sixty-eight [years ago].
Recording chronology: 162
Duration: 2 minutes, 55 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 3B, AFS 13705B:10
Digital ID
afcreed 13705b10
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcreed.13705b10