Happy new year and new tune of the week! The first tune for 2015 is Waiting for the Boatman from West Virginia fiddler Melvin Wine, who is one of my favorite old time fiddlers.
This is an entirely different tune from the A tune, Boatman or Boatman's Dance, that many here play. The story told to me when I learned it was that Melvin played the song based on his memory of a hymn that his mother sang to him as a child. Melvin passed away in 2003 at the age of 93 and below is an excerpt from the Old Time Herald (vol 9 no. 1) shortly after his death.
Melvin Wine—Playing for the Boatman |
| By Drew Beisswenger |
One of the hundreds of fiddle tunes Melvin enjoyed playing during the last decades of his life was called “Waiting for the Boatman,” an old hymn his mother sang that Melvin had reworked in a beautiful way. Before playing the tune he would sometimes sing the hymn’s lyrics, which began, “Oh, I’m waiting for the boatman, he is driving o’er and o’er.” The story is of a person waiting and, if all went well in life, ready to be ferried over to heaven’s shore. It’s easy to picture Melvin, who passed away on March 16 at the age of 93, waiting for the ferry with anticipation while keeping the other people there in good humor with his jokes and stories. He probably didn’t need to wait long to be picked up for that well-deserved ferry ride home, but after he got on board he probably had a little time to take out his fiddle and tune it up. I bet the boatman got to hear some great tunes on the trip over. |
You can hear Melvin Wine playing the tune, which is in the key of D, in this Berea College recording from 1994 here: http://cdm16020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15131coll4/id/757
Norman Blake and others play a tune by the same name (often in G) that might have some family resemblance but seems quite distinct to my ear in terms of structure and melody.
It doesn't seem to be very widely played, which is a shame because I think it is a really beautiful tune. It is a favorite of many of those with whom I get to play locally.
Here is a nice version with fiddle and banjo on YouTube: http://youtu.be/6wUhtVgye2U
A transcription for fiddle can be found here http://drfiddle.com/show_tune.php?id=56
I've attached my version here. I am trying to learn to play some fiddle and this is/was one of the first D tunes that I learned. I've been fooling around with some multi-track recording and got brave enough to include some fiddle on the last couple times through so I hope you'll put up with some sketchy intonation....