Single Footin' Horse: A Song History

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"Single Footin' Horse" is an old-time fiddle tune in D major that the Traditional Tune Archive traces to Fiddlin' Arthur Smith of Tennessee.[1] Smith, who was born in Humphreys County in 1898 and died in 1971, left a deep mark on old-time and bluegrass music.[2][3] The title refers to a horse's gait: the Tune Archive explains that at its fastest a single-footing horse travels with only one foot on the ground.[1] Oklahoma State University describes a breed called the Single-Footing Horse as smooth-riding, with an ideal gait of four nearly evenly timed beats.[4]

Bronze sculpture of a trotting horse on a small base

Edgar Degas, Horse Trotting, the Feet Not Touching the Ground, bronze, modeled after 1878, cast 1920. A trotting horse rather than a single-footing one, shown for the tune's title.

Smith recorded the tune in 1968 with Sam and Kirk McGee, his bandmates from the 1930s, for the Folkways album Milk 'Em in the Evening Blues, also titled Old Timers of the Grand Ole Opry.[5][6] It is the first track, and the notes name Smith as its performer, but it lacks the parenthetical credit to Smith that four other tunes on the album carry.[6] Mike Seeger made the recording, and Folkways notes that it is the only one the three men made as a trio.[5][6] The tune has since appeared in fiddle collections, among them Welling's Hartford Tunebook of 1976 and the first volume of Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes of 1994, whose version is credited to Tim O'Brien.[1]

Larry and Elaine Conger include a tune listed as "Single Footin' Horse" in Standard And Bass Dulcimer Duets, a book of duets for standard and bass mountain dulcimer, both tuned DAD with the bass an octave lower, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Single Footin' Horse"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Single Footing Horse".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Arthur Smith".
  3. Tennessee Arts Commission, Folklife: "Combs and Edmonstone: Arthur Smith-style Fiddling".
  4. Oklahoma State University, Breeds of Livestock: "Single-Footing Horses".
  5. Smithsonian Folkways: "Milk 'Em in the Evening Blues".
  6. Smithsonian Folkways: "Old Timers of the Grand Ole Opry (FTS 31007), liner notes".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Elaine And Larry Conger, Standard And Bass Dulcimer Duets".
  8. Image: Edgar Degas, Horse Trotting, the Feet Not Touching the Ground, bronze, modeled after 1878, cast 1920. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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