Sandy Boys – Intermediate/Advanced Fiddle Lesson

About Sandy Boys – Intermediate/Advanced Fiddle Lesson:

SANDY BOYS. Old‑Time, Breakdown and Song. USA; Kentucky, West Virginia. A Mixolydian. AEae tuning. AB (Silberberg): ABAB’A’BAB (Krassen). A tune from the repertoire of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, fiddler Edden Hammons. The original, however, appears to be in the American minstrel show repertoire, for a similar version (though different in the ‘B’ part from Hammons’ tune) can be found in Phil Rice’s Correct Method for the Banjo (1857), a period tutor, and also appears an 1844 minstrel songbook (reproduced by Harvard Theatre College Collection, Cambridge, Mass.). Gerry Milnes has found ribald words accompanying the tune in West Virginia. The modern “revival” or “festival” version may have stemmed from a ‘mislearning’ of Hammon’s tune by Bob Herring. See also Missouri fiddler Gene Goforth’s related “The Quail is a Pretty Bird.” Carl Baron supplies the lyrics, sung, in whole or part, to the melody (although it will be recognized there are quite a few ‘floating’ verses).