Fire On The Mountain: A Song History

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More than one tune goes by "Fire on the Mountain." The one fiddlers usually mean is a two-strain melody known all over the South and Midwest, often played at a furious clip. Popular folklore ties the name to tempo: a fiddler supposedly races through it until the instrument bursts into flame and the woods go up with it.[1] Library of Congress commentary calls it well documented in America from early times and, as far as its writers could tell, without roots in the British Isles, which they take as a sign of a distinctly American fiddle repertory by the late 1700s.[2] Sources differ here, though: the Traditional Tune Archive points to a closely similar tune in an 1841 Dublin manuscript.[1] A version titled "Free on the Mountains" appears in Riley's Flute Melodies (New York, 1814).[1] The melody also carried children's rhymes, play-party verses and courting jingles, which gave it alternate titles such as "Betty Martin" and "Chicken in the Bread Tray."[1][2] The order of the two parts varies by region: in the South the high part usually comes first, whereas Northern and Midwestern versions, and so most printed ones, lead with the low part.[2]

Photograph of a burned mountain forest with fallen logs, charred snags and drifting smoke

“Forest burning in Wallowa National Forest, Wallowa County, Oregon,” National Photo Company, photograph, between 1909 and 1932. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Early commercial recordings include Fiddlin' John Carson's for OKeh in 1926 and the Red Headed Fiddlers' for Brunswick in 1929.[1] Joan Moser transcribed the playing of Marcus Martin of Swannanoa, North Carolina, from a recording by Artus Moser dated 1942,[1] and folklorist Alan Jabbour transcribed it in A major from Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, in the late 1960s.[2] Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer book Join the Jam II includes "Fire on the Mountain."[3]

Other, unrelated tunes carry the same title. Sam Connor of Floyd County, Virginia, played a D-major "Fire on the Mountain" with banjo player Dent Wimmer, in a cross-tuning, and the Traditional Tune Archive keeps it separate from the common tune.[4] Isham Monday of Monroe County, Kentucky, fiddled an A-major reel under the title that the Archive describes as unrelated to the usual tune.[5] A D-major Pennsylvania dance tune of the same name, collected from Irvin Yaugher Jr. in 1943, was printed in Samuel Bayard's Hill Country Tunes (1944).[6]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Fire on the Mountain (1)".
  2. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center (Henry Reed Collection): "Fire on the Mountain [music transcription]".
  3. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".
  4. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Fire on the Mountain (5)".
  5. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Fire on the Mountain (6)".
  6. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Fire on the Mountain (3)".