Kitchen Girl: A Song History

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"Kitchen Girl" is an old-time breakdown in A. Its two parts differ in color: the first is described as A Mixolydian, the second as A minor or Dorian.[1] It came into the wider world through Henry Reed (1884–1968) of Glen Lyn, Virginia, whom the fiddler and folklorist Alan Jabbour recorded twice at the Reed family home in Giles County in 1966: once in June, and again that November with Watha Reed on guitar.[2][3] The Library of Congress notes call it a striking tune and report no close relative, only melodies with a loose family likeness.[3] The origin of the title is also uncertain. The Traditional Tune Archive cites the fiddler Bill Hicks, who notes that "kitchen girl" was often used for an enslaved woman working in a kitchen; the archive also suggests the name may come from the kitchen dances common in rural America.[1]

Louise Rosskam photograph of a farm kitchen in Vermont, 1940, with an older woman, a baby in a high chair and a girl canning beans

Louise Rosskam, Canning beans in farm kitchen near Bristol, Vermont, photograph, 1940. Farm Security Administration collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. A farm kitchen of the era; the photo is not connected to the tune.

Jabbour found his way to Reed through another fiddler. At a fiddlers' convention he was introduced to Oscar Wright, an older fiddler from Princeton, West Virginia, who played old tunes Jabbour had never heard. On learning that the man who had taught Wright "Kitchen Girl" and other tunes was still alive, Jabbour set out to find Henry Reed. He went on to describe himself as Reed's apprentice.[4] In the late 1960s Jabbour's Hollow Rock String Band, a hub of the old-time scene then growing in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, worked up band arrangements of Reed's tunes. Because the band credited him by name, Reed became known well beyond his own community.[4] "Kitchen Girl" was on the band's LP The Hollow Rock String Band: Traditional Dance Tunes (Kanawha 311), and the Library of Congress notes trace its spread into other fiddlers' repertoires to that record.[3][4]

From there it traveled far. In 1977 alone it was recorded by John McCutcheon, by the Highwoods String Band and by Boys of the Lough. Oscar Wright himself also recorded it with Eugene Wright for Rounder.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive notes that it is sometimes played in Europe as a typical American old-time tune.[1] It turns up on lists of popular old-time jam tunes in A,[5] and Stephen Seifert includes it in his mountain dulcimer jam book Join the Jam.[6]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Kitchen Girl".
  2. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "Kitchen Girl" (Henry Reed, June 18, 1966; Henry Reed Collection).
  3. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "Kitchen Girl" (Henry Reed and Watha Reed, November 26, 1966; Henry Reed Collection).
  4. Library of Congress, Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: "From Generation to Generation".
  5. Midwest Banjo Camp: "List of Popular Jamming Tunes".
  6. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam DAD Tuning".