Chapel Hill March: A Song History

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The Traditional Tune Archive files "Chapel Hill March" as an old-time tune from southwestern Virginia and places it in the repertoire of the Galax fiddler Emmett Lundy.[1] The Discography of American Historical Recordings gives Lundy's birth as May 9, 1864, in Grayson County, and his death as 1953, and lists two sides he fiddled for OKeh in May 1925 alongside Ernest V. Stoneman.[2]

Architectural watercolor showing a view and plan of the University of North Carolina grounds at Chapel Hill

Alexander Jackson Davis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, watercolor, ink and graphite, 1850–58. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the tune’s title; no source consulted connects the tune with the town.

In August 1941 Lundy recorded the tune at Galax for the Library of Congress, with Kelly Lundy on guitar and Jeedy Lundy on banjo; the catalog card names Alan Lomax, Jerome B. Wiesner and Joseph Liss as recordists.[3] The Tune Archive gives Lundy's age at that session as 77 and identifies both accompanists as his sons, spelling the banjo player's name Geedy.[4] Recordings from Galax in August 1941 were issued in 1977 on the LP Fiddle Tunes from Grayson County, Virginia (String STR 802), where "Chapel Hill March" is the eleventh track on side one; its notes credit the recording to Alan and Elizabeth Lomax, so sources differ on who made it.[5]

The Tune Archive gives "Chapel Hill Serenade" as another title and cross-references "The New Rigged Ship," an English and Scottish country-dance tune whose printed sources it lists back to Niel Gow's first book of reels (1784), naming "Chapel Hill March" among that tune's American old-time variants.[1][6] Phyllis Gaskins includes it among the key-of-D tunes, with a play-along CD track, in Galax Dulcimer: A Job of Journey Work from Beatin' Path Publications.[7]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Chapel Hill March".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Emmet Lundy".
  3. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "Chapel Hill march" (Emmett Lundy, 1941).
  4. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Jackson's March (2)".
  5. Mainly Norfolk: "Emmett W. Lundy: Fiddle Tunes From Grayson County, Virginia".
  6. The Traditional Tune Archive: "New Rigged Ship (1) (The)".
  7. Beatin' Path Publications: "Galax Dulcimer: A Job of Journey Work" (preview PDF).