While researching this tune for the write-up, I discovered that I’ve been playing it a little differently than how it was transcribed (as seen above) in Hill Country Tunes, Samuel Preston Bayard’s 1944 collection of instrumental folk music of southwestern Pennsylvania. It’s one he collected from Sarah Armstrong, whose eponymous tune was featured here in December of 2020. There are some other good tunes which come from her, so keep an eye out for more of them in tunes of the month to come.

I’m not sure where I learned this tune. Looking at the (admittedly incomplete, but complete enough) list of tunes played at the jam I’m most likely to have heard it at, I only see it once, on a day I wasn’t there. I’ve played it a bunch in the online jams that have been happening in the last six years, so maybe I picked it up at one of those? It’s a mystery.

(Also a mystery: why does such a pleasant tune have such an unpleasant title?)

Wherever I learned it, I learned it with the syncopation earlier in the measure, and with a bit of a different melody in the A part, to the point that the version of the chords on Strum Machine (which come from Tater Joe’s transcription, which has yet another variation on the melody) don’t work for me. (Here’s my version.) I like the tune both ways, so I’m including recordings of both:

I also discovered this week that it’s fun to play in DDAD tuning, so here’s a recording of that, too:

And as a bonus, here’s Paul Kirk’s version with cello, which is making me want to see if the cello we have is in playable condition, and then to see if any fiddle playing skills are transferable to cello: