Peeler Creek: A Song History
"Peeler Creek" is an American waltz in three-four time whose first strain sits in G major and whose second turns to E minor.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive gives no composer, and none is named in the sources consulted here.[1] The archive also notes that parts of the melody recall the "Temperance Reel."[1]
Georg von Dillis, The Old Willow at a Brook, etching, 1794. A brook, shown for the tune's title; it has no connection to the waltz.
Kenny Hall, a mandolin player and singer, knew the tune from his youth and recorded it for the Philo label.[1] Hall, who was born blind, included it as "Peeler Creek Waltz" in Kenny Hall's Music Book: Old Time Music - Fiddle & Mandolin, a Mel Bay collection of his repertoire written with Vykki Mende Gray.[2] Two other collections printed it in 1995, Matthiesen's Waltz Book II and the second volume of Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes.[1] It has since reached Ireland, where it is sometimes played as a mazurka, and the archive lists a recording of it by Joe Ryan.[1]
A tune listed as "Peeler Creek" appears in The Doofus - Occasional Number 4 - 18 Favorite Waltzes For Autoharp, a book of autoharp arrangements in sheet-music form by Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione of the band The Doofus.[3]
Sources
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Peeler Creek".
- Mel Bay Publications: "Kenny Hall's Music Book: Old Time Music - Fiddle & Mandolin".
- Neal Walters: "The Doofus - Occasional Number 4 - 18 Favorite Waltzes For Autoharp".
- Image: Georg von Dillis, The Old Willow at a Brook, etching, 1794. The Cleveland Museum of Art.