This weeks tune is Buck Mountain, generally a D tune.
If I were a more accomplished TOTW'er, I would have continued the theme of the last two. But I had already planned for this tune; including a hope to record a version with the guy I learned it from. Plus, I don't play the two tunes I thought of to continue the theme: John Dye and Root Hog, or Die.
However, when Bret told me that one of his open dates coincided with when I planned to be at the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering (commonly called Battle Ground), I decided to do Buck Mountain. This is because I knew that Lee Mysliwiec would be there. Lee is a BHO & FHO member, a fine fiddler and banjoist and also makes great banjos. We see each other twice a year, and I think the first year we played together he played Buck Mountain. Over the next 2 years I would only play the tune when he was around--and finally by the third year I learned it. But by that time it seemed as though the tune had become "old hat" for the Bloomington, Indiana crowd--and my Central Illinois were not picking it up from me. So, I don't get to play it as much as I like.
To the history! The Traditonal Tune Archive has the following:
BUCK MOUNTAIN. Old-Time, Breakdown. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB' (Phillips, Silberberg): AA'BB (Songer). Buck Mountain is in northwestern Albermarle County, Virginia, the only peak in its vicinity and a fairly prominent local feature. The tune is sourced (by Pete Vigour) to a fiddler from Woodridge, in southern Albemarle County, Virginia, by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte "Uncle Nip" Chisholm, active in the 1930's. "Uncle Nip" derived his nickname from his drinking habits, says Vigour, and not from a shortening of his given name. The tune was popularized regionally by a group called the Virginia Vagabonds, formed in 1932, whose guitar player, Earl Smith, was related to Chisholm and learned the melody from him (the elderly fiddler was perhaps his great uncle). Remarkably, the Virginia Vagabonds survived as a band, with some original and near-original members, into the 21st century. Fiddler Armin Barnet, the source for the tune in The Portland Collection and who is credited with popularizing it among 'revival' fiddlers, went to graduate school in Charlottesville, N.C., in the early 1970's and picked up the tune from regional players. The Vagabonds, however, played the tune in the key of G Major with the parts reversed from the printed versions, and with a more old-fashioned feel, says Vigour.
http://tunearch.org/wiki/Buck_Mountain
I have not been able to find any recordings from the original Virginia Vagabonds, but maybe someone else knows of one. The tune (paired with Shoo Fly) is on a cd from Voyager Records titled EAT N' RUN: DRIVING ME CRAZY. The liner notes for this state:
4. Buck Mountain/Shoo Fly Howie learned Buck Mountain in the key of D at a jam at Weiser. It comes from "Uncle Nip" Chisholm of Woodridge, VA. Armin Barnett says Claudio Buchwald probably brought it out west--in its original key of G, where Armin prefers playing it--from Charlottesville, VA, in the 1970s. Shoo Fly was out and around in jam sessions in the ‘70s. It's probably a descendant of Clark Kessinger's 1920s recording.
http://www.voyagerrecords.com/cd_cass.htm#L355
Steven Rosen has a version (on which he plays all instruments) on his cd titled "Old-Timey Music,". It's track 2: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/steverosen1
And, there is a cool fiddle & accordian version from the UK on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtXYJOElzhE
I now have two versions on BHO. The first I recorded in October of 2014. It was wierd. On the weekend I had gone down to Effingham, IL for the fiddle contest (I was provided back up for someone) and aftward I had a tune running through my head. As I walked toward a steakhouse afterward I must have been walking oddly because my fiddler friend said; "Oh look, he's got a tune running through his head!" ON the drive home I realized it was Buck Mountain, and it returned the next day at work. So I grabbed my work banjo and made a recording.
The second version was from today. Lee Mysliwiec and I recorded this sitting knee-to-knee under an "easy-up" at the very rainy Indiana Fiddlers Gathering. The rain makes for static like a scratchy old record. At the end you can hear Lee getting up to offer to help the young lady, whose shelter we had borrowed, to secure an extra tarp.
So, all I can add is that it is a heck of a lot of fun to play on banjo.