Cherokee Shuffle: A Song History

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"Cherokee Shuffle" grew out of an older fiddle tune rather than appearing from nowhere. Several musicians, banjoist Howard Bursen and fiddler Kerry Blech among them, see it as a West Coast offshoot of "Lonesome Indian," which fiddler Tommy Magness recorded in the 1930s.[1] The usual credit for the makeover goes to Nashville session fiddler Tommy Jackson: he moved Magness's tune from D up to A and gave it a fresh second part of his own, one that carries a couple of extra bars.[1][2] Blech notes that Magness's tune later circulated as "Lost Indian," especially among older fiddlers in North Carolina and Virginia, some of whom borrowed Jackson's new part and grafted it back on.[1] That name is itself a broad label: "Lost Indian" covers a whole family of fiddle tunes found from Virginia to Texas, many linked more by a special cross tuning than by a shared melody.[3]

1939 photograph of a winding mountain road with rows of hazy ridges in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina

Marion Post Wolcott, “Winding road and general landscape. Smokey Mountains, North Carolina,” photograph, November 1939. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Jackson's version appeared on his 1958 Dot Records LP Square Dance Tonight,[4] which SecondHandSongs lists as the tune's first recording.[5] Later recordings include one by the Charles River Valley Boys with Tex Logan.[5] Bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker is linked to a close cousin of the tune: the Traditional Tune Archive credits Baker with popularizing a Surry County, North Carolina "Lost Indian" among bluegrass musicians, and notes that it resembles "Cherokee Shuffle."[6] Tune collections have printed the tune too, for example Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983).[1]

Today "Cherokee Shuffle" is a bluegrass jam favorite, usually played in A.[1][2][7] It is sometimes played in D as well, and versions differ: some are "square," with both parts the same length, and others are not.[1] Bill Black even adapted it as an Irish reel, "Lost Kerryman."[1]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Cherokee Shuffle".
  2. Peghead Nation: "Cherokee Shuffle, Part 1" (Bluegrass Mandolin Jam Favorites).
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Lost Indian (1) (The)".
  4. Discogs: "Tommy Jackson – Square Dance Tonight" (Dot DLP 3085).
  5. SecondHandSongs: "Cherokee Shuffle".
  6. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Lost Indian (3)".
  7. Idaho Bluegrass Association: "Cherokee Shuffle" (Intermediate Jam Blog).