Annotation:Jaybird in a High Oak Tree

GETTING GEORGE BUSH UPSTAIRS. JAYBIRD IN A HIGH OAK TREE. American, Reel. A Major. AEae or GDgd tuning (fiddle). AA'BB'. The source for most modern versions is Kentucky fiddler Perry Riley (1893-1986) who was an elder cousin to another famous northeast Kentucky fiddler, Buddy Thomas. Although lame from childhood, Riley was an itinerant laborer who wandered the South in search of work, living at different times in West Virginia and Arkansas^[1] As Thomas related to Mark Wilson:

There weren’t hardly any other fiddlers around when I was growing up, only Perry Riley and he’d just come through every once in a while. He’s my second cousin on my mother’s side. He worked in West Virginia and Arkansas a lot and he’d go away and nobody would even know whether he was dead or alive. Once when I was a boy, it was fifteen years before we ever saw him again^[2].

Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Perry Riley [Milliner & Koken].

Printed sources : - Milliner & Koken (Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes), 2011; p. 330.

Recorded sources : - Rounder Records, Perry Riley - "Traditional Fiddle Music of Kentucky, vol. 1: Up the Ohio and Licking Rivers" (1997. Various artists).

See also listing at :
Hear the tune played by Howard Rains on Youtube [1] and, by Riley, at Slippery Hill [2]

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↑ Mark Wilson. Liner notes to Rounder Select CD 0376, "Up the Ohio and Licking Rivers", 1997.
↑ https://oldtimeparty.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/buddy-thomas/

[1] Mark Wilson. Liner notes to Rounder Select CD 0376, "Up the Ohio and Licking Rivers", 1997.

[2] ttps://oldtimeparty.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/buddy-thomas/

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