Sally Ann: A Song History
Several unrelated tunes go by "Sally Ann." The Traditional Tune Archive numbers them, and its fourth entry, for example, is a Pennsylvania fife march.[1] This page concerns the Appalachian reel in D (sometimes A), strongly associated with the Blue Ridge country along the Virginia–North Carolina line, which the archive treats under two entries, "Sally Ann (1)" and "Sally Ann (2)."[2][3] The archive lists "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land" and "Sail Away Ladies" among its relatives.[2] It is widely played around Galax, Virginia, and Mount Airy, North Carolina, where many versions circulate, and Wade Ward is remembered as saying "there's not a man alive that can't play Sally Ann."[3] In Surry County, North Carolina, people have jokingly called it the county's national anthem.[2]
The Soco Gap Square Dance Team dancing at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina, photograph, between 1938 and 1950. Lomax Collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.
The English collector Cecil Sharp noted words in 1918 from Dellie Hughes of Burnsville, North Carolina. In them the singer asks Sally Ann about a wedding and urges her on in the dance.[2] The Hill Billies, a band from the Galax area, made an influential record of the tune for OKeh in 1925 with "Cripple Creek" on the other side.[2][4] Other early versions came from Frank Blevins and his band at Columbia's 1927 Atlanta session and, with square-dance calls, from Freeny's Barn Dance Band of Leake County, Mississippi, on OKeh in 1931.[2] In Franklin and Floyd Counties, Virginia, a version was known as "Dineo," and the Blue Ridge Highballers recorded it as "Darneo."[2]
The archive describes two distinct strains, a Round Peak version and versions related to "Great Big Taters," and notes that the newer one grew out of fiddle-and-banjo ensemble playing rather than the older solo fiddle style.[3] Mount Airy fiddler Tommy Jarrell remembered the tune from his father, Ben Jarrell, and from Tony and Charlie Lowe, and his playing of it was issued on Back Home in the Blue Ridge (County, 1970) and Come and Go With Me (County, 1974).[3] The tune appears in Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II.[5]
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