Flannery, a fiddler in the American Revolutionary War, finds himself condemned to death, but under guard by a commanding officer with a soft spot for the fiddle. The Officer agrees to free Flannery if he can play a tune the Officer had never heard before. In the no doubt restless night before his execution, he dreams of a fiddle tune sure to win his freedom...
Or maybe he was a Civil War fiddler.
Or maybe he was just some guy who dreamed up this tune and then won a fiddling contest with it.
Or maybe these are just stories that have been attached to a great fiddle tune for years because everyone knows a compelling back story gives life to a tune.
Either way, we have from our Kentucky friends the tune Flannery's Dream.
WildJimbo mentioned this tune in his 2011 TOTW thread about Glory in the Meetinghouse, and they do bear some similarities at least in style. Very droning, lots of double stops, very meditative and even a bit rambling. It feels like a tune that could put you in a trance, but simultaneously feels like a tune best saved for when the party gets really wild. Anyway, the tune...
The Berea College Archives have a nice sampling of recordings of this tune from various Kentucky sources. Here are three of my favorites:
-A recording by Santford Kelly, who many modern players cite as their source for the tune
-Glen Fannin of Magoffin County, KY recorded in 1977
-Warner Walton (apparently the source of the Revolutionary War back story)
Ricky Skaggs, who I tend to underestimate, learned it from Santford Kelly. Here is Ricky fiddling the tune. John Hartford in turn picked it up from Ricky and included it on his excellent stringband album "Wild Hog in the Red Brush", a sample of which can be heard here. Likely in thanks to the exposure those two brought the song, as well as how raucous and fun the tune is anyway, it has become relatively common in the fiddle world, and perhaps due to Ricky in the bluegrass world of amongst mandolin and guitar pickers.
Here are a few contemporary takes on it that I enjoy:
Surprisingly, and part of the reason that I chose this as a TOTW, there are no versions on the Banjo Hangout. Not one video or mp3 that I could find! Like Glory in the Meetinghouse mentioned above, it is a bit of an odd one to arrange for the banjo, as so much of the heart of the tune comes from the pulsing yet droning fiddle sounds. But it's doable, and worth doing, so consider the gauntlet thrown down. Let's hear you folks banjo this fiddle tune up.