Annotation:Maybelle Rag

Back to Maybelle Rag

---

MAYBELLE RAG. Old-Time, Country Rag. USA, Tenn. Standard tuning (fiddle). A 'circle-of-fifths'-based tune from the playing of Tennessee fiddler Jess Young [1] (1883-1938). "The song comes from the 1912-1914 era, when Jess Young's {1925 S.E. Tenn. fiddling champ} band played on a showboat on the Tennessee River near Chattanooga; Jess often jammed with a Black guitar player named Howard Barnes. One night Barnes introduced Jess to another guitar player, May Lee Bell, who played a raggy guitar solo that Jess liked. He took it up on the fiddle, and called it, in honor of Bell, "Maybelle Rag" (Charles Wolfe, The Devil's Box, Dec. 1981, vol. 15, #4). The tune was recorded in Richmond, Indiana, in 1925, by 'Homer Davenport & (the) Young Brothers', with Jess Young on fiddle, Homer Davenport on banjo, and probably Alvin Young on guitar.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Cartunes 105, Bruce Molsky & Bob Carlin - "Take Me As I Am" (2004. Sourced to the Young Brothers and Homer Davenport). Gennett Records 3077-A (78 RPM), Jess Young (1925). Rounder Records 1033, Young Brothers & Homer Davenport - "Tennessee Strings". Yodel-ay-hee Records 014, The New Dixie Entertainers - "Maybelle Rag."

See also listing at:
See/hear the tune played by The Corncobs on youtube.com [2]

---