Polly Ann Waltz: A Song History

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"Polly Ann Waltz" is an American fiddle waltz in G major whose source recording, according to the Traditional Tune Archive, is a 1929 string-band record.[1] Frank Wilson and the Blue Ridge Mountain Trio cut it in New York on February 20, 1929, with Wilson on steel guitar, Charlie Bowman on fiddle and Walter Bowman on banjo.[2] Columbia issued the side simply as "Polly Ann" on its 15372-D disc, coupled with the trio's "Katy-Did Waltz."[3] The Tune Archive notes that this was the lineup's only recording, although its members also recorded in other combinations.[1]

Painting of a green parrot with a black and pink neck ring perched on a leafy branch.

India, East India Company School, Green Parrot, gum tempera on paper, c. 1820. A parrot, the proverbial “Polly,” shown in fun; it has no connection to the tune.

The fiddler, Charlie Bowman, came from a family of fiddlers, his father and grandfather among them, and was born in 1889 at Gray Station, Tennessee, roughly eleven miles outside Johnson City.[4] He joined the Hill Billies in 1925 as a second fiddler and died in 1962.[5] The tune appears in the second volume of Stacy Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes (1995).[6] Larry Conger includes a tune of this title, listed as a traditional American fiddle tune, in The Waltz Collection, a book of fifteen waltzes in DAD tuning published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Polly Ann Waltz"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Polly Ann Waltz".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W147971. Polly Ann / Blue Ridge Mountain Trio ; Frank Wilson".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia 15372-D (10-in. double-faced)".
  4. Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University: "Tennessee: Regional Old-Time Music of the Timothy F. Woodbridge 78 rpm Record Collection".
  5. University of North Carolina Libraries: "The Hill Billies".
  6. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Polly Ann Waltz".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, The Waltz Collection".
  8. Image: India, East India Company School, Green Parrot, gum tempera on paper, c. 1820. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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