Barlow Knife: A Song History

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"Barlow Knife" takes its name from the Barlow, a style of folding pocketknife. The style is named for a Barlow of Sheffield, England, who was one of its earliest and best-known makers.[1] Mark Twain shows how much the knife meant to a boy in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom is overjoyed with a brand-new Barlow worth twelve and a half cents, even though it won't cut anything.[2] The tune is a reel from the American South. It is played in several closely related versions in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and elsewhere, and is sometimes sung with a few verses praising the knife.[1][3]

Winslow Homer painting of two Union soldiers resting in camp, one whittling a block of wood while his companion smokes a pipe

Winslow Homer, The Brierwood Pipe, 1864: one soldier whittles a block of wood while his companion smokes. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The tune often goes by other names. Henry Reed, a fiddler from Glen Lyn, Virginia, called it "Cabin Creek." The folklorist Alan Jabbour recorded him playing it for the Library of Congress in 1966. The Library's notes add that under the "Barlow Knife" name it is often played as a banjo piece, with some lyrics attached.[4][5] The Kentucky fiddler John Salyer can be heard playing a version on home recordings his sons made in 1941 or 1942. Variants have turned up as "Blue Goose" and "I've Got a Grandpa."[1] The Fuzzy Mountain String Band recorded it on their 1973 album Summer Oaks and Porch, and their version brought together Reed's tune and words from Oscar Wright of West Virginia.[1] It has a place in dulcimer history as well. Vanderbilt University's Appalachian Dulcimer Archive holds a 2002 recording of David Schnaufer playing it with a metal slide on a Tennessee music box.[3]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Barlow Knife (1)".
  2. Project Gutenberg: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter IV.
  3. Appalachian Dulcimer Archive (Vanderbilt University): "Barlow Knife" (David Schnaufer).
  4. Library of Congress, Henry Reed Fiddle Tunes: "Cabin Creek [music transcription]".
  5. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Cabin Creek (1)".