Dandy Lusk: A Song History

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"Dandy Lusk" is an old-time reel in G from southeastern Kentucky, played on a cross-tuned fiddle.[1][2] It takes its name from the fiddler it came from, Fernando "Dandy" Lusk of Letcher County, who was born in the 1890s; some sources give his first name as Ferdinand.[1][2][3] Fiddling ran in the family: his mother, Elvina "Viney" Campbell Lusk, born in the 1870s, also played.[1]

Late nineteenth-century North American folk violin standing upright with its bow

Folk Violin, United States or Canada, late 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the instrument; it has no connection to the tune.

According to the Traditional Tune Archive, Lusk was never recorded apart from a 1952 session at home with the clawhammer banjo player Lee Sexton,[1] a recording also noted in a University of Kentucky profile of Sexton.[4] Berea College's Bruce Greene Kentucky Fiddle Music Collection holds cassette tapes of Lusk playing with Sexton,[5] and the field-recording site Slippery Hill credits its copy of the tune to Greene.[3] Lusk's cousin Manon Campbell (1890–1987), a Letcher County fiddler, learned tunes from both Viney and Dandy Lusk and was recorded in the 1970s by Mark Wilson, Bruce Greene and John Harrod.[1][6]

Clare Milliner and Walt Koken recorded it on Just Tunes (2003) and printed it in the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011).[1][2] Bruce Greene also played it in concert in 2015.[1]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Dandy Lusk".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Dandy Lusk".
  3. Slippery Hill: "Dandy Lusk's Tune".
  4. UKNow, University of Kentucky: "Banjo Master Lee Sexton and Pals to Play" (2009).
  5. Berea College Special Collections & Archives: "Lee Sexton, Dandy Lusk, Squire Campbell, Ruby Campbell, and Emory Hawkins BG-CT-145 / 146" (Bruce Greene Kentucky Fiddle Music Collection).
  6. Traditional Tune Archive: "Biography:Manon Campbell".