Betty Likens: A Song History

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"Betty Likens" is an old-time fiddle breakdown in A, which the Traditional Tune Archive describes as Mixolydian or Dorian, with two repeated strains.[1] The Archive says most present-day fiddlers trace their version to Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia.[1] The folklorist Alan Jabbour, recording with Karen Singer Jabbour, taped Reed playing it at the Reed family home in Glen Lyn, Giles County, on July 17, 1967; asked its name, Reed could recall only that it had something to do with "Granny Put the Kettle On."[2] When Jabbour recorded it from him again on October 28, Reed said he did not know the name but that it was old, and Jabbour's fieldnotes wrote the title down as "Betty Likins."[3] The Library of Congress treats the two recordings as the same tune, cataloging each under the other's title and adding "Henry Reed's Favorite" as a further alternate.[2][3]

American violin with a carved head at the top of the pegbox, viewed from the front

Philip Henry Holmes, Violin, American, 1885. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). An American fiddle of the period, shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.

The Library's notes call it "this striking old tune" and say its earlier history is unknown.[2] According to the same notes, the Hollow Rock String Band learned it, and their record on the Kanawha label (Kanawha 311) brought it into the old-time revival as "Betty Likens."[2] Jabbour, who recorded Reed in 1966 and 1967 when the fiddler was past eighty, played fiddle in that band, and the Library says many of Reed's tunes went back into circulation during the late-twentieth-century fiddling revival.[4][5] The Tune Archive credits the Hollow Rock String Band with popularizing the tune and lists it in several printed fiddle collections, among them Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes (1994).[1]

The sources consulted here tie the tune to Henry Reed rather than to the Galax area, and none of them treats it as a song or explains who Betty Likens was.[1][2][3] Phyllis and Jim Gaskins include "Betty Likens" among the "A-ish" tunes in Pig in a Pen, their book of fiddle tunes for the Galax dulcimer.[6]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Betty Likens".
  2. Library of Congress, Henry Reed Fiddle Tunes: "Granny Put the Kettle On" (Henry Reed, July 17, 1967).
  3. Library of Congress, Henry Reed Fiddle Tunes: "Betty Likens" (Henry Reed, October 28, 1967).
  4. Library of Congress: "Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection, About This Collection".
  5. Musical Traditions: "Hollow Rock String Band / Sandy's Fancy" (review by Frank Weston).
  6. Beatin' Path Publications: "Pig in a Pen and Other Fiddle Ditties for Galax Dulcimer and Other Hogfiddles" (preview).