Annotation:Tater Patch (2)

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TATER PATCH [2]. American, Reel (cut time). USA, western North Carolina. A Mixolydian. AEae or Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Brody): AABBB (Johnson, Phillips). A Blue Ridge Mountain regional dance piece. Mt. Airy, western North Carolina, fiddler Tommy Jarrell related to musician and folklorist Mike Seegar:

There was a fellow by the name of Ike Leonard...he was a working in the potato patch and this tune come in his mind. And he just throwed down what ever he was a doing and went to the house and got his banjo and played it. It must have happened about 1910...before 1920. I got it through (his uncle) Charlie Barnett Lowe...along in the '20's. Charlie Barnett's brother married Ike Leonard's widow so I got the straight story to 'The Tater Patch Tune'... the way it was told to me now.

In The Portland Collection the tune is directly attributed to Jarrell’s frequent playing partner banjo player Charlie Lowe, with the same story (i.e. that the tune came to Charlie while he was out in the field digging potatoes and that he ran to the house, got out his banjo and played it). This latter attribution comes from Mt. Airy region fiddler Ernest East.

Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Ruthie Dornfeld (Seattle, Washington) [Phillips]; Paula Walters (Corvalis, Oregon) [Songer].

Printed sources : - Brody (Fiddler’s Fakebook), 1983; p. 273. Johnson (Kitchen Musician No. 2: Old-Timey Fiddle Tunes), 1982 (revised 1988 & 2003). Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 238. Songer (Portland Collection), 1997; p. 192.

Recorded sources : - County 778, Tommy Jarrell ‑ "Pickin' on Tommy's Porch" (1984). Rounder 0045, Highwoods String Band‑ "Dance All Night" (1975).

See also listing at :
Jane Keefer’s Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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