(NB: you can mix the parts pretty freely, but I’m playing this as ABCB — that is, the A part, then the B part, then the C, part, then the B part again, and then repeat the whole thing.)

Joseph Decosimo’s Fiery Gizzard and While You Were Slumbering are two of my favorite albums of the last five years. I think he’s doing an excellent job of keeping old-time fresh by introducing new elements while staying true to its traditions, and this tune is a perfect example of that. Ida Red in an old-time jam is normally a pretty straightforward tune in A, although Uncle Earl does a great version in D. There’s a whole other western swing song with the same title which mostly comes from Bob Wills, but I’m talking about the one which sounds like what Tommy Jarrell plays, or Dykes Magic City Trio. If you’re a bluegrass fan, you’ll probably recognize Flatt & Scruggs’ “Down the Road” as a version.

Morgan Sexton was a Kentucky coal miner and banjo player, and he had an unusual crooked version of Ida Red which I had never heard before Joseph Decosimo did a version of it as the first track on Fiery Gizzard:

Listening to Sexton’s version is wonderful, but I wouldn’t have thought to try it as a fiddle tune. And I certainly wouldn’t have thought to add drums, electric guitar, and pump organ drone, but there they are, and they make it something really special. I am now inspired to see what other tunes I think of as banjo tunes might also work on fiddle. It doesn’t hurt that it’s Stephanie Coleman fiddling, too.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite tunes lately, and while it may not entirely work as a solo fiddle tune, I think it’s worth trying to spread around and get into jams to see what happens. I hope you’ll give it a try and let me know if it works for you.

(Idared apple photo courtesy of Sven Teschke.)