Five Miles From Town: A Song History

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More than one tune goes by this name or something close to it. The Traditional Tune Archive keeps two separate entries for "Five Miles from Town," and the one discussed here came from Clyde Davenport of Wayne County, Kentucky. He learned it from his father, Will Davenport.[1] Davenport was born in 1921 in Mount Pisgah in south-central Kentucky and kept a repertoire of more than 200 fiddle tunes. Many of them came from his father, his grandfather and older neighbors. In 1992 he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.[2] County Records released his recording of the tune on Clydeoscope (1986). Writing that year, Bobby Fulcher observed that it was hardly known outside Wayne County.[1] Folklorist Jeff Todd Titon recorded Davenport playing it again on March 31, 1990.[3] Titon later printed the tune in Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001).[1]

1940 photograph of two men walking home along a country road between Kentucky hills, carrying supplies from the store

Marion Post Wolcott, “Mountaineers carrying home groceries and supplies from general store near Hyden, Kentucky,” photograph, August 1940. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

The tune is in D, played in standard or ADae tuning, and it leans heavily on a drone of the home note.[1] Its phrases do not fall into the usual even lengths, so players call it a "crooked" tune.[4][5] It also has older relatives. In the 1930s, folklorist Samuel Bayard collected a related version from a fiddler in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and printed it in Dance to the Fiddle (1981). Bayard connected the family to an Irish tune known as "May Day" or "Mullingar Races," and American relatives include "Dubuque" and "Duck River."[1]

Revival players took it up early: the Chicken Chokers recorded it as "Five Miles to Town" in 1985, a year before Davenport's own album, and later versions include Bruce Molsky's on Big Hoedown (1997) and Rayna Gellert's on Starch and Iron.[1] Molsky also teaches it, crediting Davenport as the source.[5] It should not be confused with the archive's other "Five Miles from Town," an Oklahoma breakdown that Thede printed in The Fiddle Book (1967) from the playing of J. W. Johnson of Custer County.[6] One old-time club's tune notes also set it apart from a "Five Miles to Town" recorded by John Sharp.[4]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Five Miles from Town (2)".
  2. National Endowment for the Arts: "Clyde Davenport".
  3. Slippery Hill: "Five Miles From Town".
  4. Old Time Frederick: "Five Miles from Town".
  5. Peghead Nation: "Five Miles from Town, Part 1".
  6. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Five Miles from Town (1)".