Boatin’ Up Sand On The Little Sandy: A Song History

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The Traditional Tune Archive gives “Boatin’ Up Sand on the Little Sandy” an entry of its own, with no cross-reference to any “Boatin’ Up Sandy” tune.[1] It describes the tune as a reel in A major, in cut time, with two repeated strains, played on a fiddle cross-tuned AEae.[1] The archive’s source for it is the fiddler Bruce Greene, and it calls the tune slightly crooked because an extra beat falls at the cadences.[1] Slippery-Hill hosts a 1996 field recording of Greene playing it, made by Steve Millard and filed with the site’s crooked tunes.[2]

Engraving of boatmen dancing and playing a fiddle on the deck of a river flatboat

Thomas Doney, The Jolly Flat Boat Men, mezzotint and engraving with etching, 1847. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). River boatmen with a fiddler, shown for the tune’s subject; it has no connection to the tune.

Slippery-Hill also gives a longer title, “Boatin’ Up Sand on the Little Old Sandy,” as an alternate name, from a recording of the Kentucky fiddler Lela Todd.[2][3] The site credits that recording to Berea College Special Collections, with a note naming John Reddick.[3] The Tune Archive spells her name Lella Todd, gives her dates as 1891–1978, and places her at Spout Springs in Estill County.[4][5] Don Pedi recorded the tune on Bound To Have A Little Fun, an album on which he plays dulcimer.[6] It is also one of the twenty-four old-time fiddle tunes in his dulcimer tab collection of the same name.[6] Pedi and Greene have recorded together as well, on Rare Old Chestnuts, fiddle and dulcimer duets recorded in 2003.[6] The Tune Archive also lists a 2016 recording by the Ninetree Stumblers.[1] Slippery-Hill likewise gives no link to “Boatin’ Up Sandy,” and neither site says which Little Sandy the title means.[1][2]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Boatin' up Sand on the Little Sandy".
  2. Slippery-Hill.com: "Boatin' Up Sand On The Little Sandy" (Bruce Greene, 1996).
  3. Slippery-Hill.com: "Boatin' Up Sand On The Little Old Sandy" (Lela Todd).
  4. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Red Lick".
  5. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Where'd You Get Your Whiskey? (2)".
  6. Don Pedi: "Don Pedi Recordings" (catalog).