Buckwheat Batter: A Song History

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At least two different fiddle jigs in 6/8 time share the name Buckwheat Batter.[1][2] The Traditional Tune Archive separates an American tune in A major from a D-major tune that is often credited to Don Messer.[1][2]

Engraving of three men sprawled asleep on the ground beneath a tree whose trunk is ringed by a tabletop of dishes, in a fanciful landscape

Pieter van der Heyden, The Land of Cockaigne, engraving, after 1570 (?). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A fabled land of plenty, shown in fun; it has no connection to the tune.

The A-major tune is linked to the Tweedy Brothers, a West Virginia brother band.[1] Harry and George Tweedy played twin fiddles with Charles Tweedy on piano when they recorded it in Richmond, Indiana, on July 17, 1928, for release on Gennett 6604 and Supertone 9166.[3] The tune archive notes that Western Maryland fiddler Shawn Craver plays a version close to that recording.[1]

Messer's mid-twentieth-century recording of the D-major tune helped spread it in Canada and the United States; the archive lists it on his Islanders' 1958 25th Anniversary Album, and on a 1957 record of Newfoundland old-time fiddle music by the Shamrocks.[2] The title itself was on disc by February 1926, when Tom Owens' WLS Barn Dance Trio, with Tommy Dandurand on fiddle and Owens calling the figures, recorded a Buckwheat Batter for Gennett in Richmond.[4] The tune archive lists that disc, and E. F. Adam's 1928 St. Louis book of barn dance tunes, under both melodies, so sources differ on which tune they actually contain.[1][2]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Buckwheat Batter (1)".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Buckwheat Batter (2)".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UC Santa Barbara): "Gennett matrix 14064. Buckwheat batter / Tweedy Brothers".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UC Santa Barbara): "Gennett matrix 12472. Buckwheat batter / Tom Owens Barn Dance Trio".