Annotation:Roving Piper (1) (The)

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ROVING PIPER [1], THE. American, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB'. The reel is sourced to fiddler John Johnson (1916-1996) of Strange Creek, West Virginia, who in his adulthood led a peripatetic life as a jack-of-all-trades taking work where he could find it throughout the United States, where he was exposed to and influenced by a number of fiddling styles. However, his core fiddling tradition was from older West Virginia fiddlers, including his father, and regionally influential fiddlers such as Lee Triplett. In 1947 Prof. Louis Watson Chappell, a folklorist from West Virginia University, documented some of the fiddlers in the Braxton County, W.Va., area, traveling to the region with a disc recorder. He recorded Johnson playing a number of tunes, producing twenty12-inch discs in a day’s work, including “Forked Deer,” “Shelvin’ Rock,” “Jimmy Johnson,” “Camp Chase (1)” and “Fisher's Hornpipe,” but also more modern tunes such as “Down Yonder,” “Honeysuckle (1)/Honeysuckle Rag” and “Dickson County Blues (1),” and even some play-party and ballad tunes. See Michael Kline’s excellent article “John Johnson: “A Pretty Good Thing all the Way Around” in Mountains of Music: West Virginia Traditional Music from Goldenseal, Ed. John Lilly, 1999, pp. 49-61).

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - John Johnson (1916-1996, Strange Creek, Braxton County, West Virginia) [Phillips].

Printed sources : - Steve Kaufman (Favorite Traditional Fiddle Tunes, vol. 3), 2009; p. 47. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 204.

Recorded sources: - Augusta Heritage Records ‎AHR001, John Johnson – “Fiddlin’ John” (1982). John Gallagher & Scott Prouty w. Chris Coole – “No Corn on Tygart” (2012).