Martha Campbell: A Song History

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"Martha Campbell" is a Kentucky fiddle reel in D major. According to the Traditional Tune Archive, its home ground was originally central and northeastern Kentucky, but fiddlers far outside that region play it today.[1] Doc Roberts (1897–1978), a fiddler from Madison County, began recording for Gennett in 1925, and "Martha Campbell" was among his first sides.[1][2] He cut it again in 1929, this time electrically, for Supertone, the Sears label.[1] Roberts's mentor was Owen Walker, an African American fiddler.[2] The historian Charles Wolfe thought Roberts probably learned this tune from Walker around 1915.[1] Jeff Todd Titon has suggested the tune may have Black roots, citing fiddler Darley Fulks, who said he first heard it from Black fiddlers in the 1920s.[1] Who Martha Campbell was is not explained in the sources consulted here.

1940 photograph of a two-lane road curving beneath a rocky cliff through the eastern Kentucky hills

Marion Post Wolcott, “Mountain road in Kentucky, near Jackson,” photograph, October 1940. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Other early recordings followed. The eastern Kentucky fiddler Jilson Setters (James W. Day, born 1860) recorded it for Victor as "Marthie Campbell," under the name Blind Bill Day.[1] In October 1937 Alan Lomax and Elizabeth Lyttleton recorded the Gevedon family of West Liberty, Kentucky, for the Library of Congress, with Munroe Gevedon singing and fiddle, guitar and banjo accompaniment.[3] The Lomaxes recorded it in 1941 from Emmett Lundy, a Virginia fiddler then 80 years old.[1] Buddy Thomas of Lewis County, Kentucky, learned it from Bob Prater of Foxport and from Doc Roberts and recorded it on Kitty Puss (Rounder, 1974). Titon later transcribed Thomas's version in Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001).[1]

Bruce Molsky, among today's players, teaches a version that borrows some of Roberts's rhythmic phrases.[4] A bluegrass-style variant, popularized by the Texas-based fiddler Orville Burns, is treated by the Tune Archive as a separate entry.[5] Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam II has two mountain dulcimer arrangements: "Martha Campbell" and "Martha Campbell – Kentucky Version."[6]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Martha Campbell (1)".
  2. Wikipedia: "Fiddlin' Doc Roberts".
  3. Library of Congress, American Folklife Center: "Martha Campbell" (Gevedon family, West Liberty, Ky., 1937).
  4. Peghead Nation: "Martha Campbell, Part 1: Melody" (Bruce Molsky).
  5. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Martha Campbell (2)".
  6. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".