Bledsoe’s Lick: A Song History
"Bledsoe’s Lick" is one of the pieces in Ellen Pratt's Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 5, a book published by Ellen Pratt, where it is arranged in three dulcimer parts in DAD tuning.[1] Pratt's website calls the volume a collection of original and traditional arrangements, but neither that page nor the DulcimerDownloads listing credits a composer for this piece, so the sources consulted here leave open whether it is her own tune and what led her to the title.[1][2] According to her DulcimerDownloads biography, Pratt began composing for the dulcimer around 2004 and turned to ensemble writing after joining a dulcimer orchestra in northeastern Connecticut.[3]
Job & John Jackson, Shannondale/ Springs./ Virginia./ JACKSONS WARRANTED, earthenware, transfer-printed, ca. 1831–ca. 1835. A Virginia springs rather than Bledsoe’s Lick, shown for its subject; it has no connection to the piece.
Bledsoe’s Lick is the old name of Castalian Springs, a community in what is now Sumner County, Tennessee; the Tennessee Encyclopedia says the name changed when a post office opened there in 1837.[4][5] The same reference credits Isaac Bledsoe, a frontier hunter who ranged widely along the Cumberland River, with finding the lick and Bledsoe’s Creek in 1772, and dates the fort he built there to 1784.[4][5] The springs later drew summer guests to a log inn built there in 1828 and called Wynnewood only from the early 1940s; the Tennessee Historical Commission acquired it in 1971 to preserve as a historic site.[4]
Sources
- Ellen Pratt: "Ensemble Arrangements For The Mountain Dulcimer, Volume 5".
- Ellen S. Pratt: "Ensemble Arrangements for Mountain Dulcimer Volume 5".
- DulcimerDownloads: "Ellen Pratt".
- Tennessee Encyclopedia: "Wynnewood".
- Tennessee Encyclopedia: "Isaac Bledsoe".
- Image: Job & John Jackson, Shannondale/ Springs./ Virginia./ JACKSONS WARRANTED, earthenware, transfer-printed, ca. 1831–ca. 1835. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.