Trude Evans: A Song History

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"Trude Evans" is an old-time reel in D major, a version of the tune more widely played as "Walking in the Parlor."[1][2] Its name comes from West Virginia, where the Clay County fiddler French Carpenter (1899–1965) called it after the woman who taught it to him.[1] Wilson Douglas of Ivydale, West Virginia, remembered her as a fiddler and dancer of Carpenter's day who made up the tune, and quoted Carpenter as saying no one could outplay her on it; his account spells her name "Trod Evans," and the sources consulted here give nothing more about her life.[2]

Pencil sketch of two seated men, one holding a fiddle and bow, while others listen in a doorway

William Sidney Mount, Catching a Tune, graphite, probably 1867. A fiddler and his listeners, sketched by William Sidney Mount probably in 1867, shown for the fiddle tune; the drawing has no connection to the tune.

Ken Davidson recorded Carpenter playing it in the field in 1963, and the Traditional Tune Archive credits its transcription to that performance.[1] The Fuzzy Mountain String Band, who had the tune from Carpenter, included it on their 1973 Rounder album Summer Oaks and Porch.[1][3] Kenton Sears later recorded it for the Augusta Heritage collection Old Time Fiddling of Braxton County, vol. 2 (1992), and it is printed in David Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983), Stacy Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes (1994) and the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011).[1]

Galax dulcimer players will find it among the D tunes in Phyllis Gaskins's Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), a Fingers Of Steel book with illustrations that play on its title, written in her adapted notation for a dulcimer with every string tuned to D, with instructions for DAD tuning as well.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Trude Evans"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Trude Evans".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Walking in the Parlor (1)".
  3. University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries: "Summer Oaks & Porch, Fuzzy Mountain String Band".
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
  5. Image: William Sidney Mount, Catching a Tune, graphite, probably 1867. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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