Sally Goodin: A Song History

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"Sally Goodin" is a breakdown in A, often fiddled in AEae cross-tuning, and it has long been both a fiddle tune and a play-party song across the upland South, the Midwest and the Southwest, though not everywhere: Michigan's old fiddlers, for one, did not know it.[1] Folk Visions and Voices, a study of north Georgia traditional music, describes the tune as known nearly everywhere in the South, though its verses, in which the singer spends all his money to go and see Sally, were by then sung less often than in the past.[1] Who Sally was is a matter of legend. Kentucky fiddler Hiram Stamper said the tune was once called "Boatin' Up Sandy" and was renamed during the Civil War by men of John Hunt Morgan's Confederate command, in honor of a widow who ran a boarding house near the Big Sandy in Pike County and let them camp and play there.[1][2] Eck Robertson told a different story, about a young woman who promised herself to whichever fiddler played the tune she liked best.[2]

Pencil sketch of two seated men tuning their fiddles while a girl stands by

William Sidney Mount, Tuning, graphite, 1867. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

Robertson, a fiddler raised in north central Texas, went to New York in June 1922 with Henry Gilliland, an elderly Civil War veteran, and won an audition at Victor.[2][3] On June 30 the pair recorded together, including "Arkansaw Traveler," and on July 1 Robertson came back alone and recorded "Sallie Gooden."[2][3] Victor issued "Sallie Gooden" on September 1, 1922, on disc 18956, with the "Arkansaw Traveler" duet on the other side.[2][3][4] The Library of Congress counts these among the first country music recordings and added the record to the National Recording Registry in 2002.[5][6] Robertson's solo works through at least thirteen distinct strains, and Texas fiddlers still play his setting with many of those strains intact.[1]

Many others recorded the tune in the 78 era; Guthrie Meade's discography lists twenty-nine early versions, among them one by Uncle Dave Macon in 1925.[1] Charles Wolfe noted its popularity with Kentucky fiddlers, and Samuel Bayard considered "Sally Goodin," "Old Dan Tucker" and a "Rye Whiskey" he collected in Pennsylvania to be related.[1] Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II includes two settings of the tune.[7]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Sally Goodin".
  2. Library of Congress, National Recording Preservation Board: "“Arkansaw Traveler” and “Sallie Gooden”—Eck Robertson (1922)" (essay by Wayne Erbsen).
  3. Native Ground Books & Music: "Eck Robertson and the Story of Sally Gooden".
  4. Smithsonian National Museum of American History: "Sallie Gooden; Arkansas Traveler".
  5. Library of Congress: "National Recording Registry: 2002".
  6. Library of Congress: "Country Music Timeline".
  7. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".