Forks Of Big Sandy: A Song History

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The title “Forks Of Big Sandy” is close to “Three Forks of Big Sandy,” which the Traditional Tune Archive lists among the alternate titles of the reel best known as “Forks of Sandy,” a G-major tune associated with western North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky; its other names there include “Three Forks of Sandy” and “Roll ’em up Sandy.”[1] The name points to the Big Sandy River on the Kentucky–West Virginia border, whose three forks the archive gives as the Levisa Fork, the Tug Fork and the Big Sandy itself.[1] The fiddler Ed Haley is reported to have played it in three parts, one for each fork.[1] It should not be confused with “Big Sandy River,” a bluegrass reel in A major credited to Bill Monroe and Kenny Baker and dated to 1963.[2]

Pencil drawing of a river winding between wooded hills, with tall trees and grazing cattle on the near bank

Thomas Addison Richards, Susquehanna below Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, graphite on off-white wove paper, 1852. A wooded river valley in the Appalachians, shown for the tune’s river setting; it has no connection to the tune.

Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, with Posey Rorer on fiddle, recorded “Forks of Sandy” in New York on September 16, 1926, for release on Columbia 15106-D.[3][1] According to the researcher Kinney Rorrer, the tune was first called “Sandy River Belle,” but Columbia’s Frank Walker pointed out that a Columbia record of that name had already come out, so the melody was altered and the tune given its new title.[1] That earlier record was by Charley La Prade and his Blue Ridge Highballers, made for Columbia in New York in 1926, a few months before the Poole recording.[4] Oscar Wright said that Poole and Rorer made the tune popular in his part of West Virginia, Mercer County, when they played there in 1916, 1917 or 1918, and that he learned it from Rorer himself.[1] The Kessinger Brothers of West Virginia, with Clark Kessinger on fiddle, recorded it for Brunswick as “Three Forks of Sandy,” and later recordings include ones by Oscar and Eugene Wright and by John Hartford.[5][1]

Larry Conger includes “Forks Of Big Sandy,” in DAD tuning, in Hoedowns & Breakdowns For Mountain Dulcimer, a book of danceable tunes that comes with an MP3 recording of each one, published by Fingers Of Steel.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Forks Of Big Sandy"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Forks of Sandy (1)".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Big Sandy River".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W142632. Forks of Sandy / North Carolina Ramblers; Posey Rorer".
  4. Traditional Tune Archive: "Sandy River Belle (3)".
  5. Smithsonian Folkways: "Clark Kessinger, Fiddler" (liner notes, FA 2336).
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hoedowns & Breakdowns For Mountain Dulcimer".
  7. Image: Thomas Addison Richards, Susquehanna below Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, graphite on off-white wove paper, 1852. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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