Sourwood Mountain: A Song History

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Peaks called Sourwood Mountain rise in western North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, named for the sourwood tree that grows across the Appalachians. According to the notes to a 1955 Folkways album, communities near those peaks tend to regard the song as theirs and name some local player as its author.[1] One such claim comes from a descendant of William Francis “Blue Bill” Combs (1840–1924), a fiddler and farmer of Russell County, Virginia, whose family tradition holds that he composed it. That story is family lore, and the song's real origin remains unknown.[2] The verses revolve around courting the girls of the mountain, with nonsense syllables filling out the lines.[3] The same Folkways notes call it a social satire that exists in many variants.[1]

1937 photograph of a small farm on a slope below wooded ridges in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

John Vachon, “Farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia,” photograph, October 1937. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Collectors have found the tune and song all over the South, frequently as a banjo piece.[2] In Kentucky, it turns up in more than one of the tune lists compiled at a 1915 fiddlers' gathering in Berea, and it was played at the Berea fiddle contests of 1919 and 1920. Folklorist Charles Wolfe counted it among the favorites of Kentucky's older fiddlers.[2] The earliest commercial recordings found in the sources consulted here date from 1924. That year Uncle Am Stuart, born in Morristown, Tennessee, recorded it for Vocalion.[2][4] Fiddlin' Powers and Family of southwest Virginia recorded it for Victor in 1924 and for Edison in 1925.[5][2] Doc Roberts also recorded it, and West Virginia fiddler Edden Hammons played it in a cross-tuning.[2][3]

Fiddle collections give it as a reel, most often in A major, played in standard tuning or with the fiddle cross-tuned AEae.[2][3] Tommy Jarrell of Surry County, North Carolina, learned it from his father, Ben Jarrell, and from Charlie Lowe. He recorded it on Pickin' on Tommy's Porch (County, 1984).[3][6] Stephen Seifert's mountain dulcimer collection Join the Jam II includes two arrangements, one of them labeled as the Round Peak version.[7]

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Sources

  1. Smithsonian Folkways: North Carolina Ballads sung by Artus Moser, Folkways FA 2112, liner notes (PDF).
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Sourwood Mountain (1)".
  3. The Fiddler's Companion (ibiblio): "Sourwood Mountain [1]".
  4. Bear Family Records: "Allen Sisson & Uncle Am Stuart: Early Country Fiddlers".
  5. Wikipedia: "Cowan Powers and his Family Band".
  6. Wikipedia: "Tommy Jarrell".
  7. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam II".