Annotation:Pike County Breakdown
PIKE COUNTY BREAKDOWN. American, Reel (cut time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle): gDGBD (banjo). The title refers to a county in the state of Kentucky. The tune is credited to Rupert Jones, although it is sometimes credited to Bill Monroe or Jones & Monroe. Writers Charles Wolfe and Neil Rosenberg, in their book "In Bluegrass 1950-1955" quote Bill Monroe: "I wanted to write something and title it after something up in the eastern part of Kentucky. You remember Sweet Betsy from the Pike? I listened to that and wrote the Pike County Breakdown." Monroe sometimes seems to have taken credit for tunes that were not strictly his own compositions, although he may have had a hand in adapting and popularizing them. "Pike County Breakdown" was recorded twice in 1952 and issued on single records; once by Bill Monroe, and again, in May of that year, by Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys (Mercury Records 6396). The original may have sounded more like Sam Dyer's (Macon County, north-central Tenn.) version, before Monroe gave it a bluegrass treatment.