Westfork Gals: A Song History
"Westfork Gals," catalogued in the Traditional Tune Archive as "West Fork Girls," is an old-time reel known as a central West Virginia tune. Clay County fiddler Wilson Douglas placed its title on the West Fork of the Little Kanawha River, and he thought that Ed Haley, a fiddler whose influence ran through eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, picked the tune up in Clay County.[1] Douglas's version came by way of his mentor French Carpenter, who was playing it in the 1920s, and Krassen (1973) observed that it was a favorite among fiddlers around Gilmer County, West Virginia.[1] Perlman (1979) has suggested a possible kinship with the Irish reel "The Wexford Lasses," though that remains a suggestion rather than an established fact.[1]
John Vachon, photograph probably related to Ozark Mountains girls, Missouri, May 1940. Farm Security Administration–Office of War Information collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. The photograph was taken in Missouri, not West Virginia, and is not connected to the tune.
The tune appears in print in Krassen's Appalachian Fiddle (1973) and later in Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983), and it has been recorded by the Fuzzy Mountain String Band, the Hollow Rock String Band and John Hartford, among others.[1] Mountain dulcimer players can find it in Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam collection for DAD tuning.[2]
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