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WILD BILL JONES. Old Time, Bluegrass; Song and Breakdown. USA, Kentucky. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). Standard tuning (fiddle). A very popular ballad [Laws E10] that is also known as a banjo piece, recorded earliest by fiddler Eva Davis (in 1924, with banjo player Samantha Bumgarner), but also famously recorded by Burnett and Rutherford, Dock Boggs and by Frank Profitt, and even by bluegrass legends Doc Watson, and Ralph Stanley with the Stanley Brothers. It was collected in the Appalachians in 1916 by English folklorists Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles.
Versions are variously in double and triple time.
Additional notes
Recorded sources : - Columbia 129 D (78 RPM), 1924, Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis (Asheville, N.C.). County CD-CD-2711, Kirk Sutphin - "Old Roots and New Branches" (1994). Edison Blue Amberol 5196 (Cylinder Recording), Ernest V. Stoneman (1926). Rounder 0361, Bruce Molsky – “Lost Boy” (1996. Learned from the late Clyde Troxell, originally from near Rockybranch, Ky., who had the tune from Retta Spradlin of nearby Bell Farm). Rounder CD 7018, Clyde Troxell - “The Marimac Anthology: Deep in Old-Time Music.” Up Records, The Bad Livers – “Lounge Ax Defense.” Vassar Clements – “Crossing the Catskills.”
See also listing at :
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Hear Eva Davis & Samantha Bumgarner's 1924 recording on youtube.com [2][3]
Hear Dock Bogg's recording on youtube.com [4]
Hear a 1974 recording by the Highwoods String Band performing the tune at Slippery Hill [5]
See the Ballad Index entry on "Wild Bill Jones" [6]
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