Today's Tune of the Week is Red Steer, which comes to us from fiddler John Dykes and his Magic City Trio. I don't remember where I first encountered the tune, but my primary source is a version by Ohio fiddler and field recorder Jeff Goehring.
JOHN DYKES and DYKES MAGIC CITY TRIO
Dykes Magic City Trio (John Dykes, Myrtle Vermillion, Hub Mahaffey)
John Dykes (1882?- 1940s?) was a well-known fiddler in the east Tennessee and southwestern Virginia area during the 1910s and 20s. Information on him is somewhat scarce and contradictory (thus the question marks above), and instead of trying to evaluate and summarize the various sources I have come across, I will instead just extensively quote from and paraphrase one of them, Charles Wolfe's liner notes to the album "Dykes Magic City Trio, String Band Classics", released by Old Homestead Records in 1987.
It was July 27, 1927, and the readers of "The Big Stone Gap [Virginia] Post" were getting some good news. "Old Fashioned Dance Friday", the headline read. "Dykes, famous fiddler, will furnish music", it continued. "J.R. Dykes of Kingsport, who is nationally known as an old-time fiddler, together with his associates, will furnish music for a genuine square dance at Pleasure Island Friday night. Mr. Dykes has just returned from New York City, where several selections of his famous 'mountain music' were recorded. He was selected to make this music only after a representative of the recording company had heard over 800 contestants".
That famous audition, the first of its kind where a record company had consciously sought out old-time music talent in Appalachia, had been held the previous February in Norton, Virginia. Among the 800 contestants that Fiddlin' John Dykes had beaten were A.P. Carter and The Carter Family. Ironically, the week of this dance, 75 miles to the southwest in Bristol, Victor talent scout Ralph Peer was auditioning the Carter Family for his company. But Fiddlin' John Dykes and "his associates" - known as "The Magic City Trio" - had done some 14 sides and already had records in the stores. They had become stars, and were already recognized as one of the best fiddle bands to come out of Appalachia.
Although John Dyke was a well-known and very influential fiddler in upper east Tennessee, rather little is known about his life. He was born about 1882 and spent years working in the mines in Wise County, Virginia. He won fame as one of the best square dance fiddlers in the area. "He fiddles to perfections all the old tunes used for dances at the mountain homes" commented one newspaper writer of the time.
By the middle 1920s, John Dykes found he could no longer work in the mines. He moved to the bustling new town of Kingsport, Tennessee - known as the "Magic City" - and in about 1925 formed The Magic City Trio with two younger musicians, autoharp player Myrtle Vermillion (a cousin of Sara Carter's) and guitarist-singer G.H. 'Hub' Mahaffey. After the group was formed , they played a wide variety of socials and dances in the Kingsport area.
Then came February, 1927, and their audition in Norton. In March they were invited to come to New York and record. On the way to New York, the band practiced on the train, and collected small change in tips from fascinated passengers. This was good, because when Dykes got to Grand Central Station he was promptly robbed of their expense money. The record company executives, though, were glad to see them, and especially liked the sound of Myrtle Vermillion's autoharp. Dykes later told friends that the record company "made him play his tunes different" when he recorded - whatever that meant. But the executives in charge told Myrtle that the group "didn't have no idea what fine records we made, and said they would outsell any of this scientific stuff".
The group recorded 14 tracks over three days. It was the second day of recording, March 10, that brought forth the best of the fiddle tunes. Among them was "Red Steer", a tune associated with another fiddler from the area, Cowan Powers, who had recorded it in 1924 under the name "Brown's Dream".
The Magic City Trio continued to perform until about 1932, when Myrtle Vermillion's duties as a mother and housewife began to interfere with her wish to play music. Hub Mahaffey played with a number of local bands up through the 1960s. John Dykes was pretty much out of music by the 1930s, although he still went to fiddling contests and occasionally did a square dance. He died sometime in the 1940s, thinking perhaps of his brief shot at glory and of the well-crafted legacy during those memorable three days he spent in New York City in 1927.
FIDDLIN' COWAN POWERS and HIS FAMILY BAND
The Cowan Powers Family Band (Charlie, Ada, Orpha Lou, Carrie Belle, Cowan)
As noted above, John Dykes probably got the tune Red Steer from Fiddlin' Cowan Powers (1879-1953), who was active in the teens and twenties in the same southwestern Virginia area. With his children Charles, Orpha Lou, Carrie Belle and Ada, he formed the Cowan Powers Family Band, which is generally considered to be the first family stringband to appear on record. In August, 1924, they recorded seventeen tracks for the Victor Record Company, eight of which were released. One of those recordings, Old Joe Clark, became the third best selling record of the year. They went on to record nine sides for Edison in 1925, and a further six for Okeh in 1927, before disbanding around 1930 as the girls got married and started families.
It was the August 18, 1924, session which produced Powers' version of Red Steer, under the name Brown's Dream, but it was not among the eight recordings released by Victor. As far as I can determine, it has never been made available in any form.
THE TUNE
As suggested by the name given to the piece by Cowan Powers, Red Steer is considered to be part of the John Brown's Dream family of tunes.
The Fiddler's Companion has this to say:
RED STEER. AKA and see "Brown's Dream [1],” “John Brown’s Dream." Old-Time, Breakdown. GDgd tuning. From the playing of fiddler John Dykes, of the Kingsport, Tennessee, area, leader of the Dykes Magic City trio. The tune as a member of the “John Brown’s Dream” family of tunes. Richard Blaustein sees similarities in the ‘A’ part with Dykes’s “Callahan Reel” and a tune called “Boatman”; and in the ‘B’ part with “Paddy Won’t You Drink Some Good Old Cider.” Old Homestead OHCS 191, "Dykes Magic City Trio" (Eastern Tenn.) {originally recorded on a Brunswick 78, 1927}.
As far as I can determine, the name Red Steer originated with John Dykes. Tracing the tune back any farther basically leads to the history of John Brown's Dream itself.
Red Steer is in the key of A. It has three parts, but in Dykes' own arrangement of the tune those parts seem to be somewhat randomly ordered. Jeff Goehring used the rather unusual pattern ABBCB.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
Dykes Magic City Trio (1927): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huWrwTmcyFI&feature=youtu.be
Jeff Goehring: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/13037/docs/11%20John%20Dykes%20Red%20Steer.mp3.mp3?t=1440755163434
Solo banjo - Tim Rowell: http://info.therealschoolofmusic.com/traditional-music-project/red-steer
Fiddle and banjo - Tim & Deane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6jyCniFW4g
Fiddle and banjo - frfiddle: http://www.fiddlehangout.com/myhangout/media-player/audio_player2.asp?musicid=11195&archived=
Fiddle and guitar - Joe Decosimo & John Schwab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCdkEXcI6BE
2014 Clifftop jam - Grace Forrest, Steve Arkin, John Herrmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge2Fn_v_1x0
2015 jam - Rayna Gellert, Jack Devereux, and friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zbQPW7ykfg
Jeff's version can be found on the FRC release devoted to his fiddling: http://fieldrecorder.org/product/jeff-goehring/
The tune is also on the 2003 album "Shout Lulu", from The Rockinghams (John Herrmann on banjo, Rafe Stefanini on fiddle): http://www.discogs.com/Rockinghams-Shout-Lulu/release/7241004
TABLATURE
From Tim Rowell (based on Jeff Goehring's fiddle version): http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/13037/docs/Red%20Steer.pdf?t=1439289540542