Annotation:Haning's Farewell

Find traditional instrumental music

Back to Haning's Farewell


HANING'S FAREWELL. AKA and see "Booth Shot Lincoln (2)." Old-Time, Slow breakdown. USA; Texas, Oklahoma. A Aeolian (Am). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Marion Thede says source J.S. Price learned the tune around 1902 from John Crooks, a fiddler in west Texas. It has been picked up by "revival" fiddlers in the 1970's from Thede's book, and David Molk is often credited with popularizing it along with Armin Barnett, and Brian "Hawk" Hubbard. The tune was further developed (or distanced from the original) until, as Kerry Blech says, "it took on a life of its own...folks like Jeff Goehring and Andy Cahan got hold of it and breathed whole new life into it and started calling it 'Music From the Spheres'".

Blech identifies a tune played by Texas fiddler Claude Parker as a close variant. Parker, who lived in Gonzalez and Bexar Counties, was born around the beginning of the 20th century and played in an archaic style. Blech accessed a home recording made in the 1960's on which Parker's modal version, called "Indian Shot the Woodchuck" is played (with the fiddle tuned considerably below standard pitch).

Source for notated version: J.S. Price (Greer County, Oklahoma) [Thede].

Printed sources: Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; p. 16.

Recorded sources: Flying Fish FF266, Malcolm Dalglish & Grey Larsen - "Thunderhead" (1982). Whoop it Up 101, Red Mountain White Trash - "Fire in the Dumpster."




Back to Haning's Farewell