Cousin Sally Brown: A Song History

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The Traditional Tune Archive lists two old-time fiddle tunes called "Cousin Sally Brown," and the two are not related musically.[1] The first is a modal breakdown in A.[1] According to the archive, it is widely played around Galax, Virginia, and is known in western North Carolina as well; the archive's notation comes from the fiddler Marcus Martin (1881-1974) of Swannanoa, North Carolina.[1] The second is a reel in D, from the repertoire of Gaither Carlton (1901-1972) of Deep Gap, North Carolina, a fiddler and banjo player who was Doc Watson's father-in-law.[2] The archive treats "Old Sally Brown," recorded for the Library of Congress by Calvin Cole and Dan Tate, as a version of this second tune.[2]

Miniature portrait of a young girl with dark parted hair in a dark dress with puffed sleeves and a ruffled neckline

Portrait of a Girl, watercolor on ivory, ca. 1830. An American girl’s portrait of the early 19th century, shown for the title; it has no connection to the tune.

A tune by this name was on record by 1928.[3] On 10 July of that year the Virginia Mountain Boomers recorded "Cousin Sally Brown" for Gennett in Richmond, Indiana, with Herbert Sweet on fiddle, Earl Sweet on banjo and Ernest V. Stoneman on guitar.[3] Collectors including Alan Lomax and Artus Moser recorded Marcus Martin in the 1940s.[4] Those field recordings, "Cousin Sally Brown" among them, came out in 2007 on When I Get My New House Done, from the University of North Carolina's Southern Folklife Collection.[4][5] Gaither Carlton plays fiddle on the tune in a bonus track on the 1990 Smithsonian Folkways CD of The Watson Family, an album Folkways first issued in 1963.[6] Calvin Cole plays it on solo banjo on Fancy Gap Banjo, a 2012 album from the Field Recorders' Collective.[7]

Phyllis Gaskins includes it in Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), a book of tunes for the Galax dulcimer, with her playing instructions and her adapted notation, published by Fingers Of Steel.[8]

Our book that contains the song "Cousin Sally Brown"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Cousin Sally Brown (1)".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Cousin Sally Brown (2)".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Gennett matrix 14019. Cousin Sally Brown / Virginia Mountain Boomers".
  4. North Carolina Folklife Institute: "Marcus Martin: When I Get My New House Done, Western North Carolina Fiddle Tunes and Songs".
  5. Musical Traditions: "Marcus Martin" (review by Ray Templeton).
  6. Mainly Norfolk: "The Watson Family".
  7. Field Recorders' Collective: "Calvin Cole: Fancy Gap Banjo".
  8. Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
  9. Image: Portrait of a Girl, watercolor on ivory, ca. 1830. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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