Green Willis: A Song History
"Green Willis" is an old-time breakdown in D from southwestern Virginia. According to the Kimble family, as reported by the Traditional Tune Archive, the title remembers Green Willis, a Galax-area fiddler of the nineteenth century; the Archive adds, citing Christian Wig, that the melody once did duty as a "school breaking" march, played on the last day of the school year.[1] The Archive bases its main version on Taylor Kimble (1892–1979) of Laurel Fork, Virginia, and notes that the older Galax fiddler Emmett Lundy, born in 1864, also had the melody, though in 6/8 time.[1] A 1973 recording of Kimble playing it was issued on Marimac's Carroll County Pioneers.[2]
Winslow Homer, Snap-the-Whip, wood engraving, 1873. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).
Kimble's version reached the folk revival through the Fuzzy Mountain String Band of Durham, North Carolina, who learned it from him and put it on their 1972 Rounder album; it later appeared in print in Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983).[1] Over time it has picked up other names, among them "The Raw Recruit" and "Chapel Hill Serenade."[1][2] The Archive also points to a close relative across the Atlantic: "The New Rigged Ship," a jig long played in English traditional circles, which it calls essentially the same melody in 6/8 and probably the older of the two.[1] "Green Willis" is one of the tunes in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer jam book Join the Jam II.[3]
Find books with Green Willis for sale →