Baskets: A Song History

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"Baskets" is an original by Butch Ross, credited to him in A Long Way From Shady Grove, a Fingers Of Steel book that transcribes his CD of the same name and gives the tune in EBE tuning along with a guitar introduction.[1] Ross’s DulcimerDownloads biography describes him using the mountain dulcimer to take on music as varied as Bach, the Beatles and Radiohead.[2] His Bandcamp page dates the album to May 9, 2009, with "Baskets" as its tenth track.[3] In a note on the track, Ross says he wrote it while in graduate school for a documentary on Kentucky basket weavers, and adds that the song "does little more than end."[4] The sources consulted here do not name the documentary or say more about the piece.[4]

Conical woven basket with a dark zigzag pattern

Diagonally twined carrying basket, Pomo, willow, sedge root, redbud, oak and wild grape vine, ca. 1900. A Pomo basket rather than a Kentucky one, shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.

Our book that contains the song "Baskets"

Sources

  1. Fingers Of Steel: "Butch Ross, A Long Way From Shady Grove".
  2. DulcimerDownloads: "Butch Ross".
  3. Butch Ross (Bandcamp): "A Long Way From Shady Grove".
  4. Butch Ross (Bandcamp): "Baskets".
  5. Image: Diagonally twined carrying basket, Pomo, willow, sedge root, redbud, oak and wild grape vine, ca. 1900. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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