Salt Creek: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"Salt Creek" is the bluegrass name for an older American breakdown in A, with a Mixolydian flavor, known earlier as "Salt River."[1][2] Under the older title it was recorded for Brunswick in 1929 by the Kessinger Brothers, featuring fiddler Clark Kessinger of Kanawha County, West Virginia, and other West Virginia fiddlers, among them Doc White and Franklin George, also had versions.[3] Where it came from is uncertain. Guthrie Meade heard a distant kinship with "Molly Maguire," an Irish tune printed by P. W. Joyce in 1909, and Charles Wolfe also thought the reel was Irish in origin.[3] Several different tunes go by "Salt River," so the title alone does not always point to this melody.[2]

Painting of a clear stream tumbling over mossy boulders in a shady wood

Julie H. Beers, A Mountain Stream, oil on canvas, 1870. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

Bill Monroe recorded the tune as "Salt Creek" in 1963, with Bill Keith on banjo.[1] Keith had joined the Blue Grass Boys that March, and "Salt Creek," "Devil's Dream" and "Sailor's Hornpipe" were among his first recordings with the band, made for Decca during his roughly nine months with Monroe.[4][5] Keith brought the band a melodic banjo style well suited to playing fiddle tunes note for note.[4][5] The Fiddler's Companion lists Monroe's recording as Decca 31596.[2] Accounts of the new name differ: one report says Decca asked for it because Monroe's previous single had been "Big Sandy River," while Alan Jabbour suggested Monroe named it for a stream by his Bean Blossom festival grounds and thought he learned the tune from banjo player Don Stover, who knew it as "Salt River."[1] Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II includes "Salt Creek."[6]

Find books with Salt Creek for sale →

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Salt Creek (1)".
  2. The Fiddler's Companion (ibiblio.org): "Sally Ann [1]" (tune entries Sally to Salv).
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Salt River (2)".
  4. Bluegrass Today: "I'm Going Back To Old Kentucky #81".
  5. Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum: "William Bradford “Bill” Keith".
  6. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".