Ship In The Clouds: A Song History

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"Ship in the Clouds" is an old-time reel from Virginia in the key of D, which fiddlers play in either standard or ADae tuning.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive suggests that the versions played in the revival probably go back to two southwestern Virginia sources: Norman Edmonds (1889–1976), and Taylor Kimble (1892–1979) with Stella Wagoner Kimble of Laurel Fork.[1] Edmonds, a Hillsville fiddler, played it with his band the Old Timers on the 15-minute programs they made for Galax radio, and a performance taped in 1958 appears on a Field Recorders' Collective album drawn from those broadcasts.[2] The Kimble family's own recording came out in 1978 on the Galax-based Heritage label.[1]

Watercolor of small sailing boats off a coast under dark, towering storm clouds

John Sell Cotman, Boats off the coast, storm approaching, watercolor over graphite, with gouache, 1830. Sailing boats under storm clouds, shown for the title; the watercolor has no connection to the tune.

That same year Folkways issued an LP of old-time instrumentals by Lisa Ornstein (fiddle), Andy Cahan (banjo) and Laura Fishleder (guitar) that opens with the tune and takes its name from it.[3] The tune archive credits that version to the Kimbles and lists other recordings by the Critton Hollow String Band, Bob Carlin and Scott Nygaard, along with transcriptions in Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983) and in volume 1 of Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes (1994).[1] On the dulcimer side, the tune is one of the selections in Mark Gilston's More American Old Time Tunes For Dulcimer, a sheet-music collection Gilston issues himself and offers on DulcimerDownloads as an authorized download.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Ship In The Clouds"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Ship in the Clouds".
  2. The Field Recorders' Collective: "Norman Edmonds and the Old Timers, Volume 1 (FRC301)".
  3. Smithsonian Folkways: "Ship in the Clouds: Old Time Instrumental Music".
  4. Mark Gilston: "More American Old Time Tunes For Dulcimer".
  5. Image: John Sell Cotman, Boats off the coast, storm approaching, watercolor over graphite, with gouache, 1830. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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