OK, for this week I'm submitting a fairly obscure Missouri D-tune called Piedmont. I think it deserves to be a bit less obscure.
The tune comes from the great Missouri fiddler Art Galbraith. I learned it from Billy Mathews, really just a few weeks ago. I first heard it on his 500 tunes project, on the first volume released in 2008. I've had those tunes on my mp3 player in rotation since then, and every time Piedmont came by I thought, "oh yeah, Piedmont. I should give that a try." But I never did. Then in early February I attended one of Billy's fiddle workshops in Mountain View, AR. Billy played Piedmont at the Friday night jam, and by the third time through I figured out enough of the A part to realize that it's a really fun tune on the banjo. The A part just bounces around alot.
So I decided to use Piedmont for my upcoming TOTW, and started researching it. That's when I found out that it is a fairly obscure tune. I also found that it is not easy to search for a fiddle tune called Piedmont--those terms return LOTS of hits.
Here is the Fiddlers Companion entry:
PIEDMONT. Old‑Time, Breakdown. D Major. Standard tuning. AABB. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Source Galbraith thought it might have been a tune from Scotland. Source for notated version: Art Galbraith (1909-1993, near Springfield, Mo.), learned from his Uncle Tobe [Beisswenger & McCann, Phillips]. Beisswenger & McCann (Ozark Fiddle Music), 2008; pg. 40. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 1, 1994; pg. 184. Rounder 0157, Art Galbraith - "Simple Pleasures" (1983).
There could be alot written about Art Galbraith. There is a short autobiographical article available online, and here is n excerpt from the Spring 1982 issue of "Bittersweet (you can follow the link for the full text):"
Art Galbraith and Gordon McCann:
I've been trying to play the fiddle since I was approximately ten years old. I grew up in a family who played. An uncle lived with me who played and he taught me a lot. He had a finger off. When my dad and he were little boys, he was holding corn cobs and he stuck his finger out too far and my dad chopped his finger off with a hatchet. But it got well all right. He always thought it would grow back but it never did! So then he just played the fiddle with three fingers. He was pretty good. I learned a lot of tunes from him. That was Uncle Mark.
Uncle Tobe was an older uncle who played very well and played a lot of tunes. I got most of my tunes from him. My dad bought me a fiddle when I was about nine years old, I guess. I've tried on my own to play and I just picked it up more or less. I heard it and I liked it.
Gordon McCann has donated his large collection of home recorded cassette tapes, and his notebooks, to the archives at Missouri State University. In the Inventory of the collection (http://guides.library.missouristate.edu/GordonMcCannCollection) there are bits of transcribed discussions about Art's uncle Tobe, for example:
"...Art Tells about his Uncle Tobe, he played a lot sitting by himself, Aunt Ellie, his wife, he'd say "Ellie, how does that part in such-and-such go?" And she'd whistle it perfectly."
..“Uncle Tobe’s wife, Aunt Ellie, she was a big old comfortable fat woman would do some kind of hand work while he played, he’d say ‘Ellie, how does that tune go?’ and she’d whistle it” ...(like Shorty does for Glen Rickman)"
.."Art talks about Uncle Tobe ... says he played everything strickly the way he learned it..... then Clay or Fred would come in, Clay especially, and experiment with tunes..... and he’d play something like Soldier’s Joy with a different twist. Says Uncle Tobe would say “Why, he’s ruined that”......"
.."Piedmont in D (.042)
Art learned this tune from his Uncle Tobe who would have been
126 years old, born in 1853, lived to be 80 years old....."
Piedmont has not been on many published recordings. The first was a Rounder album by Art Galbraith titled "Simple Pleasures" released in 1983. That's out of print and I couldn't find any digitized version. After Art passed away in 1993 there was another Rounder album released, but again it's not available and I could not find any digitized versions. So, I can't provide a version by Galbraith. That may change, because in doing the research for this TOTW I wrote to Drew Beisswenger to see if he had a digitized copy I could use, and he gave the contact of the person in charge of the McCann collection at Missouri State, and she wrote back saying that I had good timing because they where in the process of putting the collection up on YouTube, and she could move one of the sessions containing "Piedmont" up the queue, and which of the 33 version would I be most interested in! So hopefully that will be available before this topic goes into archive.
The next recording was on hammered dulcimer by Cathy Barton on an album titled "On a Day Like Today" released in 1986. It's in a medley, and I think all three tunes are Art Galbrath/Uncle Tobe tunes.
Cathy Barton & Dave Para playing Shamus O'Brien/Piedmont/Wideman's Quickstep
(Piedmont begins at around 2:54 mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZOatoE9Ko
Billy Mathews, 500 Fiddle Tune Project, 2008-2011. http://www.banjobilly.net/discography.htm and the tune is attached to this topic below.
Jame Bryan and Carl Jones, Cricket's Lullaby 2011. Excerpt available on CDbaby:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jamesbryancarljones (It's track 14).
The tune is probably named for Piedmont, Missouri. A town of about 2,000 people at the eastern edge of the Ozarks: http://www.bestplaces.net/images/city/Piedmont_MO.gif
So here's the tune, give it a try. It's good in Double-D. The A part mostly has bouncing pull-offs on the first & third strings. The B part has a first string pull off from the 7th fret to the open string. I think it the tune has more room for syncopation than what I do.