Black Cat In A Briar Patch: A Song History
"Black Cat in a Briar Patch," which the Traditional Tune Archive lists as "Black Cat in the Briar Patch," is an old-time fiddle tune from West Virginia, tied to the playing of Melvin Wine (1909–2003) of Copen, in Braxton County.[1] Wine came from a family of Braxton County fiddlers and singers going back at least to his great-grandfather, and he named his father, Bob Wine, as his biggest musical influence.[2] The tune is unusual in two ways: its first strain is in G and its second in C, the shifting-key pattern the Traditional Tune Archive calls an old-time quadrille, and its first strain is "crooked," carrying one extra beat.[1]
Théodule Ribot, Cats, pen and brush and black ink, 1838–91. Shown for its black cat; it has no connection to the tune.
Wine recorded it on Cold Frosty Morning, a 1976 LP on the Poplar label, and Miles Krassen printed it in Masters of Old Time Fiddling (1983).[3] West Virginia gave Wine its first Vandalia Award, and in 1991 the National Endowment for the Arts gave him a National Heritage Fellowship.[4] His setting is still taught today; Bruce Molsky uses it in an online old-time fiddle course, moving between the keys of G and C.[5]
Dana Gruber includes it, in DAD tuning, in The Pickin' Porch, a Fingers Of Steel collection of arrangements in dulcimer tablature and standard notation, with guitar chords for jamming.[6]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Black Cat in the Briar Patch".
- e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia: "Melvin Wine".
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Black Cat in the Briar Patch".
- West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History: "Melvin Wine" (Vandalia Award).
- Peghead Nation: "Black Cat in a Briar Patch, Part 1".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, The Pickin' Porch".
- Image: Théodule Ribot, Cats, pen and brush and black ink, 1838–91. The Cleveland Museum of Art.