Forked Deer: A Song History

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"Forked Deer" is an old-time reel in D. It has many titles, including "Forky Deer," "Forki Deer" and "Forked Buck." Miles Krassen, as cited by the Traditional Tune Archive, found it widely played in much of the southern mountains.[1] The Library of Congress notes to Alan Jabbour's field recording of Virginia fiddler Henry Reed call it "a quintessential fiddle tune of the old frontier." The same notes point out that no Old World or northern source has been found for this old and far-traveled tune, and that its name is shared by a West Tennessee river, a fact most mountain fiddlers are unaware of.[2] It is not known whether the tune was named for that river, and several explanations of the title compete. One links it to the river. William Byrne suggested it began as "Fauquier Deer," after a Virginia county. John Hartford and Pat Sky guessed at an original "Forked Air," meaning a crooked tune.[1]

1830 hand-colored engraving of a buck with forked antlers and two does beside a stream, with mountains behind

John Sartain after Thomas Doughty, Common Deer, hand-colored engraving, 1830. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication.

The tune's documented history goes back a long way. Its first known printing was in George P. Knauff's Virginia Reels, published in Baltimore around 1839. It is named among the dance tunes in "The Knob Dance," a comic dialect story set in East Tennessee and published in 1845. In Slavery and Its Results, Alfred Benners remembered it being played before the Civil War in Alabama by Jim Pritchett, an enslaved fiddler in Marengo County.[1] It also appeared in nineteenth-century fiddle books under other names. In Brother Jonathan's Collection of Violin Tunes (1862), for example, it is called "Gas Light Jig."[2] It was on the 1915 tune lists from Berea, Kentucky, and was played at the Berea fiddle contests of 1919 and 1920.[1] Today it is normally played in two parts, but older settings often had more. The blind Kentucky fiddler Ed Haley played a five-part version, and Jeff Titon has suggested that records helped shorten and standardize the tune.[1]

"Forked Deer" was there at the start of recorded fiddle music. On June 30, 1922, Eck Robertson and Henry Gilliland recorded it for Victor in New York, but the take was never issued.[3][1] In 1924 the Tennessee fiddler Uncle Am Stuart, from near Morristown, recorded it for Vocalion as "Forki Deer," with Gene Austin on tenor banjo.[4][5] In 1928 the Kentucky fiddler Jilson Setters (James W. Day) recorded it for Victor. In 1929 Charlie Bowman of East Tennessee and his brother Walter recorded it for Columbia.[1][6] It was later collected in the field as well, as when Alan Jabbour recorded Henry Reed at the Reed family home in Glen Lyn, Virginia, in 1966. Reed knew another title, "Hounds in the Thorn Bush," but considered "Forked Deer" the proper name.[2] It remains widely played. Missouri fiddler Charlie Walden includes it on his list of 100 essential Missouri fiddle tunes, Dan Crary recorded it in 1970 and so brought it into the flatpicking guitar repertoire, and Stephen Seifert includes it in his mountain dulcimer jam book Join the Jam.[7][8][9]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Forked Deer".
  2. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "Forked Deer" (Henry Reed, 1966; Henry Reed Collection).
  3. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry: "'Arkansaw Traveler' and 'Sallie Gooden'—Eck Robertson (1922)".
  4. Knoxville Old-Time: "Uncle Am Stuart".
  5. Wikipedia: "Uncle Am Stuart".
  6. Wikipedia: "Charlie Bowman".
  7. Charlie Walden: "100 Essential Missouri Fiddle Tunes".
  8. Acoustic Guitar: "Flatpick the Fiddle Tune 'Forked Deer'".
  9. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam DAD Tuning".