Yellow Barber: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

"Yellow Barber" is a reel in D from the fiddling of Kentucky, southern Ohio and West Virginia, and it was popular among fiddlers around Portsmouth, Ohio, and in the Huntington, Ashland and Ironton area where the three states meet.[1] To the south and east, including Bath County, Kentucky, the same tune more often goes by "Arthur Berry," "Arthur Barry" or "Arthur Barrie."[1][2] The title is commonly read as a reference to a barber of mixed race, but the Traditional Tune Archive calls that reading plausible and unproven, and Mark Wilson, who interviewed the fiddlers he could find who knew the tune from tradition, found that none of them knew what the name meant.[1]

Etched portrait of a bearded violinist seated with his violin in his lap

William Strang, Dr. Joachim, etching, 1887. Shown for its violin; it has no connection to the tune.

Buddy Thomas, an eastern Kentucky fiddler who lived near Portsmouth, recorded an influential version before his death in 1974 at the age of 39.[1] It appears on his only commercial album, Kitty Puss: Old Time Fiddle Music From Kentucky, recorded in 1973 and 1974, produced by Mark Wilson and Guthrie T. Meade, and issued by Rounder in 1976.[3] Another performance by Thomas is on a Field Recorders Collective disc of the recordings Ray Alden and Dave Spilkia made of him.[4] Portsmouth fiddler Jimmy Wheeler (1917 to 1987) also played it, and Indiana fiddler John W. Summers, who probably had it from Bath County fiddler Tom Riley, recorded it as "Arthur Barry" for Rounder in 1984.[1][2] It is among the tunes listed for a 1985 interview with Alfred Clark Bailey, recorded in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, for Morehead State University's Vintage Fiddlers Oral History Project.[5] Bruce Molsky, who learned it from Buddy Thomas, recorded it on his 1996 album Lost Boy.[1]

Mark Gilston, described in the listing as a national champion dulcimer player, includes it in American Old Time Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 1, a collection of core old-time repertoire arranged for mountain dulcimer.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Yellow Barber"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Yellow Barber".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Arthur Berry".
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Kitty Puss: Old Time Fiddle Music From Kentucky".
  4. Field Recorders Collective: "Buddy Thomas – FRC303".
  5. Morehead State University, Vintage Fiddlers Oral History Project: "Alfred Clark Bailey, Part 03".
  6. Mark Gilston: "American Old Time Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 1".
  7. Image: William Strang, Dr. Joachim, etching, 1887. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song