Duck River: A Song History

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The Duck River winds 284 miles through Middle Tennessee and is the longest river lying wholly inside the state,[1] but the fiddle tune that bears its name is documented from eastern Kentucky. Its source is John Morgan Salyer (1882–1952), a farmer and fiddler of Salyersville, the Magoffin County seat, a town named for his grandfather.[2][3] In 1941–42 his sons Grover and Glen recorded him on a home disc-cutting machine, backing him on guitar and mandolin.[3][4] "Duck River" was cut on December 18, 1941, and the discs are now at Berea College.[4][5] None of the sources consulted here explains why a Kentucky fiddler's tune is named for a Tennessee river, or whether Salyer composed it or learned it from someone else.[6]

Color print of a pair of wood ducks resting among tall grasses at the edge of a river

A. Pope Jr., “The Wood Duck,” chromolithograph from Upland Game Birds and Water Fowl of the United States, 1878. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

The tune is in D major and is fiddled in either standard tuning or ADae.[2] Folklorist Jeff Titon suggested that this exact version may be unique to the Salyers, though it is one member of a larger group of related melodies.[2] The Traditional Tune Archive links it to "Dubuque," "Sally in the Green Corn" and "Hell Up Coal Holler," and notes that West Virginia fiddler Israel Welch played a version he called "Forks of Cheat."[2] One Knoxville old-time group suggests "Duck River" and "Dubuque" are similar enough that players might not want to put them one after the other at a jam.[6]

Salyer's home recordings were reissued on Home Recordings 1941–42, vol. 1 (Oak Records, 1993). Bruce Greene recorded the tune on Vintage Fiddle Tunes for Berea College's Appalachian Center, and Brittany Haas included it on her 2004 album. It is printed in Titon's Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001), the Portland Collection (1997) and the Milliner-Koken Collection (2011).[2]

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Sources

  1. Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation: "Duck Scenic River".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Duck River".
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Biography:John Salyer".
  4. Slippery Hill: "Duck River".
  5. Berea College Sound Archives: "John Morgan Salyer".
  6. Knoxville Old Time: "Duck River – Tune History".