John Brown's Dream: A Song History

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"John Brown's Dream" is an A-major tune, often fiddled in AEae cross-tuning, that the Traditional Tune Archive counts among the staples of fiddlers around Galax, Virginia; kindred versions turn up under other names throughout the upland South.[1] The title now points to the abolitionist John Brown, hanged in 1859 after his raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, yet most commentators think the tune may be older than that event.[1] West Virginia fiddler Franklin George knew it as "Herve (or Harv) Brown's Dream," a name he had from Jim Farthing,[1] and in 1973 the writer Miles Krassen argued that this was the original title, with the little-known Herve giving way to the famous abolitionist as the tune spread.[2] The Tune Archive observes that Krassen offered no source against which the story could be checked.[2]

1937 photograph of Uncle Alex Dunford, an elderly Galax fiddler, playing his fiddle indoors

“Uncle Alex Dunford, of Bog Trotters Band, with fiddle, Galax, Virginia,” photograph, 1937. Lomax Collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

One early recording came from Surry County, North Carolina, fiddler Ben Jarrell (1880–1946), who went to Richmond, Indiana, in 1927 with Da Costa Woltz and banjo player Frank Jenkins to record for Gennett.[3] Their "John Brown's Dream" was among the tracks County Records reissued in 1972 on an LP of the band's work.[1][4] In 1942 Alan Lomax recorded Hobart Smith of Saltville, Virginia, playing it on fiddle, with L. Smith on guitar, for the Library of Congress.[5] Smith played it on banjo as well, and a performance of his appeared on Tradition Records' Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians (1956).[1] The New Lost City Ramblers recorded it for revival listeners on String Band Instrumentals (Folkways, 1964).[6]

Ben's son, Tommy Jarrell of Mount Airy, learned the tune from him and believed it grew out of an older piece, "Pretty Little Miss."[1] Jarrell's later recordings include duets with banjo player Fred Cockerham, and Kirk Sutphin recorded it on Old Roots and New Branches (County, 1994).[1] The wider family, which probably began in the Blue Ridge, includes "Little Rabbit," recorded in 1931 by Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers,[7] and a G-major "Big Eyed Rabbit" from William Marshall of Carroll County, Virginia.[8] All three titles appear in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[9]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:John Brown's Dream".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Brown's Dream (1)".
  3. NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): "Jarrell, Benjamin Franklin".
  4. Smithsonian Institution, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives: "Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters: featuring Ben Jarrell & Frank Jenkins".
  5. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "John Brown's dream" (Hobart Smith, Saltville, Va., 1942).
  6. Smithsonian Folkways: "String Band Instrumentals" (The New Lost City Ramblers).
  7. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Little Rabbit".
  8. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Big Eyed Rabbit (1)".
  9. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".