Jack Of Diamonds: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

Several different fiddle tunes share the name "Jack of Diamonds." One is an A-major reel found in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and West Virginia, and a favorite display piece among Texas and contest fiddlers; Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson is among its documented sources, and players have developed many personal versions.[1] The title was already on folklorist Vance Randolph's 1954 list of traditional Ozark fiddle tunes, and the reel is also known as "Fort Worth." It resembles the old reel "Mason's Apron," and its first strain is shared with several other tunes.[1]

Early 1900s photograph of three men playing cards at a small table

“At Broad Channel – a card game,” Bain News Service photograph, 1910–1915. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

A second "Jack of Diamonds" belongs to the large family of tunes that includes "Rye Whiskey" and "Drunken Hiccups."[2] Its sung form takes its name from the playing card mentioned in verses about drink and lost fortunes.[2] The scholar Samuel Bayard thought the melody was sung before it was fiddled and linked it to the Scottish "Todlin Hame" family.[3] North Carolina fiddler Ben Jarrell learned it from an older player, Houston Galyean of Low Gap, and recorded it in 1927, the year he made records for Gennett as fiddler with Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters.[2][3][4] His son Tommy Jarrell made it a solo showpiece in a cross tuning, and one of its lines supplied the title of the documentary Sprout Wings and Fly.[4]

Other tunes carry the name too, among them a C-major reel from eastern Kentucky fiddler Owen "Snake" Chapman, who credited an elderly Chicago fiddler as his source.[5] "Jack of Diamonds" is one of the tunes in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[6]

Find books with Jack Of Diamonds for sale →

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Jack of Diamonds (1)".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Jack of Diamonds (3)".
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Drunken Hiccups (1)".
  4. Field Recorders' Collective: "Tommy Jarrell".
  5. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Jack of Diamonds (2)".
  6. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".