Buck Mountain: A Song History
"Buck Mountain" takes its name from a peak in northwestern Albemarle County, Virginia, the lone peak in the surrounding area.[1] Pete Vigour traced the tune to Napoleon Bonaparte "Uncle Nip" Chisholm of Woodridge, in southern Albemarle County, who was playing in the 1930s. Vigour says it spread locally through the Virginia Vagabonds, a band formed in 1932. Their guitarist, Earl Smith, was a relative of Chisholm's, possibly a great-nephew, and learned the melody from him. The Vagabonds played it in G major, with the two parts in the opposite order from the printed versions.[1]
A. F. Tait, Alarm, chromolithograph, Currier & Ives, c. 1868. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication.
The tune reached the wider old-time revival through Armin Barnett. He learned it from local players while he was a graduate student in Charlottesville in the early 1970s and is credited with spreading it among revival fiddlers.[1] His version, in D major, is the one printed in The Portland Collection (1997). It also appears in Stacy Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, volume 1 (1994), and Silberberg's Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern (2002).[1][2] It is also in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[3]
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