Lost Girl: A Song History

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"Lost Girl," also found as "The Lost Girl," is an old-time fiddle reel that the Traditional Tune Archive now ties chiefly to Magoffin County, Kentucky, and to the fiddlers John Salyer and Walter McNew; it is usually played in G, though C-major settings also turn up.[1] Drawing on the folklorist Jeff Titon, the Archive reports that the tune is thought to have reached Kentucky from Virginia, where the older Galax fiddler Emmett Lundy had a version, and that it is not common in Kentucky even though several versions are known there.[1] Titon's review of contest records shows a "Lost Girl" being played at fiddlers' contests in Berea, Kentucky, in 1919 and 1920, but which tune those players used cannot be determined.[1] Alan and Elizabeth Lomax recorded Lundy playing "The Lost Girl" at Galax in August 1941 for the Library of Congress's Archive of Folk Song, and the performance was later issued on the 1977 LP Fiddle Tunes From Grayson County, Virginia.[2]

Old daguerreotype of two young men in dark coats, one holding a violin and bow, the other a flute

Violinist and Flute Player, daguerreotype, about 1847. An early photograph of a fiddler, shown for the tune's fiddle tradition; it has no connection to the tune.

Other early field recordings share the name, though they are not necessarily the same melody: Luther Strong's fiddle tune "The Lost Girl," recorded in Hazard, Kentucky, in October 1937, is held in the Alan and Elizabeth Lomax Kentucky collection,[3] while the Texas fiddler Lake N. Porter's cross-tuned "Lost Girl," recorded for the Library of Congress in 1939, is a different piece altogether.[4] Recordings of Salyer, made at home in 1941–42, and of McNew were both issued by the Appalachian Center in 1993, and revival bands such as the Foghorn Stringband and the Reed Island Rounders have recorded the reel as well.[1] Phyllis Gaskins's Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), published by Fingers Of Steel, files it with the G tunes, which on her Galax dulcimer, with every string tuned to D, start the scale at the third fret.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Lost Girl"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Lost Girl (1)".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "Emmett W. Lundy: Fiddle Tunes From Grayson County, Virginia".
  3. Alan Lomax Kentucky Recordings: "The Lost Girl".
  4. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Lost Girl (2)".
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
  6. Image: Violinist and Flute Player, daguerreotype, about 1847. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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