Annotation:Old Buck

X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x

OLD BUCK. American, Reel (cut time). USA; Mt. Airy, N.C. G Mixolydian: A Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle); GDgd or AEae. AB. A variant of the 'double-tonic' reel "Paddy on the Turnpike." Tommy Jarrell told Mike Seegar in an interview:

Will I was a trying to learn "Paddy On the Turnpike," Rafe Brady came down here one time and I got him to play it twice for me. Well that was back yonder in the 40's when I wasn't doing no fiddling much, you know, and I got to fooling with it...and about a year after that I come up with that tune that I play there and Rafe was down here again. I played it for him and he says "Tommy, that ain't 'Paddy on the Turnpike', that's Old Buck'. Well, if there's a tune named 'Old Buck' I don't know nothing about it but that was all that was said, that's what I called it from then on, 'Old Buck'...So I made a tune I reckon. But there's part of it sort of like 'Paddy on the Turnpike' but it still ain't 'Paddy on the Turnpike' and the ending up of the low part and the high part both got a little place there you slide your fore finger--B.F. calls it a-slurring the note...

Additional notes

Tommy Jarrell (1901-1985) and Fred Cockerham (1905-1980)

Source for notated version: - Tommy Jarrell (Mt. Airy, N.C.) [O.T.H.]; Mark Gaponoff [Silberberg].

Printed sources : - Old Time Herald, August 1991, vol. 3, No. 1, p. 39. Silberberg (Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern), 2002; p. 109.

Recorded sources: -County 778, Tommy Jarrell - "Pickin' On Tommy's Porch" (1984). Field Recorders Collective FRC211, "Tommy Jarrell vol. 1."

See also listing at:
Hear the tune played at learning speed [1]

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