Annotation:Saturday Night Waltz (2)

Find traditional instrumental music



X:1 T:Saturday Night Waltz [2] S:Bob Larkan M:3/4 L:1/8 D:OKeh 45229 (78 RPM), Bob Larkan & His Music Makers (1928) F:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/saturday-night-waltz Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:A E2|c3d cB |(A4 G2)|{GAG}F6-|F4z(F|G3) A/G/A G2| F2 F/G/F E2|E6-|E4z2|[E3c3]c/d/ cB|(A4G2)| {FG}F6-|F4-FE-|E6|{E}c4B/c/B|A6-|A4z2|| c'4f2|b4a2|a6-|a6|{ga}(g4 g/a/f)-|f6| e6-|e4(e2|c'4)f2|b4a2|(a6|a6)| g3f ga|{a}b6|a6-|a4z2||



SATURDAY NIGHT WALTZ [2]. American, Waltz (3/4. USA, Arkansas. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The tune was recorded by Robert William (Bob) Larkan (1867-1942, sometimes spelled as 'Larkin'), born in New York City to an Irish father and English mother, both immigrants. By 1870 the family established themselves in Boone County Missouri, but when Larkan married in 1888 the couple moved to Tollville and then Hazen, in the flat farming country of Prairie County, central Arkansas (west of Little Rock), between the Arkansas and White Rivers. The Larkan Music Makers were a family band: mother Hattie played the organ, and nine daughters and five sons joined. Bob Larkan was a perennial winner of local fiddle contests and was proclaimed the champion fiddler of the state in 1927 and 1928. The family band also played on radio stations, and played over KFKB shilling for quack doctor John R. Brinkley, and then for another quack practitioner Norman Baker over his radio station XENT. The OKeh and Vocalion companies recorded a total of twelve sides from the Larkan band in February and November, 1928. Larkan suffered from severe asthma, and, by 1940, he was no longer able to play professionally. He died in 1942 at his home in Hazen, of asthma.
Fiddlin' Bob Larkan & His Music Makers; circa 1928. (Bob Larkan sitting, 2nd from left)



Larkan was also an avid sportsman and skilled skeet shooter. According to a news release, he was a champion live-bird shooter and his local newspaper obituary noted he was a "retired farmer and sportsman," who had run the state's trapshooting contest for the Peters Ammunition Company [1]

Gus Meade notes that "Saturday Night Waltz" is credited to Bob Larkin (Larkan) in the Brunswick recording company ledgers."


Additional notes





Recorded sources : - County 519, Fiddlin' Bob Larkan & Family - "Echoes of the Ozarks, Vol. 2." OKeh Records 45229 (78 RPM), Fiddlin' Bob Larkan and his Music Makers (1928).

See also listing at :
Hear Bob Larkan's recording at Slippery Hill [1]



Back to Saturday Night Waltz (2)

0.00
(0 votes)




  1. Tony Russell, Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost, 2007.