[[File:Carroll County Blues.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Don Richardson]]
|f_tune_name=Elk River Blues
"Carroll County Blues" was the Mississippi fiddle and guitar duo Narmour and Smith's biggest hit recording. The original melody is said to have been composed by fiddler Will Narmour (1889-1961) and was named for his home county, Carroll County, north-central Mississippi, but whether Narmour actually composed it is in dispute. Narmour, however, did record the tune with a man named Shell (Sherril) Smith, whose wife, it has been written, recalled that Narmour may have heard the tune either being whistled by a black farmer (according to David Freeman), or hummed by a black field hand (remembers Henry Young). This farmer claimed authorship and called the tune "Carroll County Blues." Narmour and Smith then "worked the tune out," presumably meaning that they arranged it for fiddle and guitar. Narmour is known to have been friendly with black bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, who lived in nearby Avalon. It has also been maintained, ostensibly by older community members in Avalon, that Narmour's mentor, Gene Clardy, an older local fiddler, was the one who composed "Carroll County Blues." However, the story about the black farmer is also disputed, and, further, it may be that Gene Clardy neither wrote nor played the tune.
Gary Stanton, in his article "All Counties Have Blues: County Blues as an Emergent Genre of Fiddle Tunes in Eastern Mississippi" ('''North Carolina Folklore Journal''', vol. 28, no. 2, Nov. 1980), points out that the tune is not what one would consider to be in conventional twelve or sixteen bar blues, but was rather built on several 'riffs' (melodic statements) separated by long held notes or a contrasting musical figure. This results in a piece which has alternations of motion and repose, that Stanton contrasts with Anglo-American fiddling, which is almost constant melodic and rhythmic motion. Joseph Scott points out that:
|f_notes=Ernie Carpenter (1909-1997)
<blockquote>
|f_caption=According to the booklet accompanying Carpenter's LP, the story behind the tune is one of a difficult adjustment to a forced change in Ernie's life.
''It seems to be fairly widely accepted among old time music enthusiasts''
''that Narmour and Smith's "Carroll County Blues" is not a "true blues,"''
|f_pix=420
''because it does not use the "standard" 12-bar blues progression. That ''
|f_picpix=200
''reasoning rests on the anachronistic assumption that all "true blues" by ''
|f_article=[[Elk River Blues | '''Elk River Blues''']]
''definition used the 12-bar approach. The famous 'standard' 12-bar approach ''
''increasingly dominated within blues over the decades... "Carroll County Blues"''
'' is based on the same basic progression, the 8-bar I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I, as were ''
''some 'Blues' by 'black' Mississippi musicians born around the same era, such ''
''as "Sundown Blues by Alec Johnson, "Pretty Mama Blues" by Cannon's Jug ''
''Stompers, and "Vicksburg Blues" by Scott Dunbar.''
</blockquote>
In addition the tune features 'blues notes', flattened thirds and sevenths slurred into the natural note. The timing is rather odd (ten measures in the 'A' part instead of the usual eight, among other irregularities) with respect to the majority of fiddle tunes, but despite this Freeman (1975) says it has become one of the most famous fiddle tunes in the United States. He notes it was mentioned in Talking Machine World, an old trade paper, as having been one of the biggest selling records of 1929. Narmour recorded other "Carroll County Blues" tunes (see abc's below) attempting to ride the popularity of "Carroll County Blues #1" but they never achieved such widespread acclaim as the first. Due to its popularity #1 was covered by a great many fiddlers, including Kentuckian Doc Roberts (it appears that the Gennett company gave a copy of Narmour's recording to Roberts and told him to learn it for their next recording session). Subsequently, it has been found in local fiddlers' repertoires throughout the South and Mid-West. As previously mentioned, the 'A' part is irregular, though Phillips notes that Narmour sometimes omits the 2/4 time measures (in an otherwise 4/4 tune) or adds two beats to them, so that his performance can be considered inconsistent as well, a not uncommon phenomenon among traditional fiddlers who seldom play a tune the same way twice. "Carroll County Blues" also seems to be related to bluesman Furry Lewis' "Turn Your Money Green." Other than Narmour & Smith's 1929 recording, another early version was by the Doc Roberts Trio (1933). S'
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[[Annotation:Carroll County Blues|CARROLL COUNTRY BLUES full Score(s) and Annotations]] and [[Featured_Tunes_History|Past Featured Tunes]]
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Composed by Braxton County, West Virginia, old-time fiddler Ernie Carpenter (1909-1997).
According to the booklet accompanying Carpenter's LP, the story behind the tune is one of a difficult adjustment to a forced change in Ernie's life. He had worked most of his life for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Clarksburg, prior to retiring in 1972 to his home in Braxton County, West Virginia.
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He was a regular visitor during his working years to his homeplace on the Elk River, and was witness to the planning and construction of the Sutton Dam by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the river during the 1950's and 1960's.
[[File:Carroll County Blues.mp3|thumb|left|Carroll County Blues]] {{break|4}}
{{#lst:Carroll Country Blues|abc}}
Unfortunately, this resulted in the flooding of his boyhood home and the surrounding area, despite the efforts of himself and neighbors to forestall the project through a lobbyist. He refused the government's initial offer for his land (they didn't offer him anything for his house), and took the case to court.
He was able to gain a marked increase in the money he eventually was paid through this process, although he had to pay legal fees out of his pocket. He stayed in his Elk River homestead while the dam was being constructed, even though most of his neighbors had already left. Workmen blocked the roads in and out of the area, but Carpenter found alternate routes until they too were closed off.
"I was the last person out of there," he said," I went ahead then and tore the old place town and brought it up here. Part of its in this house." Of the tune, he remarked: "I was sittin' here one day, an' I had the blues. I reckon as bad as anybody could, thinkin' about my old homeplace up on the Elk River. I started sawin' on the fiddle an' that's what I came up with."
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Latest revision as of 16:17, 4 October 2024
According to the booklet accompanying Carpenter's LP, the story behind the tune is one of a difficult adjustment to a forced change in Ernie's life.Elk River Blues
Composed by Braxton County, West Virginia, old-time fiddler Ernie Carpenter (1909-1997).
According to the booklet accompanying Carpenter's LP, the story behind the tune is one of a difficult adjustment to a forced change in Ernie's life. He had worked most of his life for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Clarksburg, prior to retiring in 1972 to his home in Braxton County, West Virginia.
He was a regular visitor during his working years to his homeplace on the Elk River, and was witness to the planning and construction of the Sutton Dam by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the river during the 1950's and 1960's.
Unfortunately, this resulted in the flooding of his boyhood home and the surrounding area, despite the efforts of himself and neighbors to forestall the project through a lobbyist. He refused the government's initial offer for his land (they didn't offer him anything for his house), and took the case to court.
He was able to gain a marked increase in the money he eventually was paid through this process, although he had to pay legal fees out of his pocket. He stayed in his Elk River homestead while the dam was being constructed, even though most of his neighbors had already left. Workmen blocked the roads in and out of the area, but Carpenter found alternate routes until they too were closed off.
"I was the last person out of there," he said," I went ahead then and tore the old place town and brought it up here. Part of its in this house." Of the tune, he remarked: "I was sittin' here one day, an' I had the blues. I reckon as bad as anybody could, thinkin' about my old homeplace up on the Elk River. I started sawin' on the fiddle an' that's what I came up with."
X:1
T:Elk River Blues
C:Ernie Carpenter (W.Va.)
M:4/4
L:1/8
R:Air
N:Played slower than a breakdown, at a very brisk
N:walking pace
Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz
K:G
D EG|[M:5/4]A2A3 A/B/ AG E/D/E/F/|[M:4/4]G2G3 D EG|[M:5/4]A2 A3 A/B/ AG E/D/E/F/|[M:4/4]G2 G3 G/A/ B/c/d|
[M:5/4]e2 e3 e/f/ ed B/A/B/c/|[M:4/4]d2 d3B G(3A/B/d/|[M:5/4]e2 e3 e/f/ ed B/A/G/B/|[M:4/4]A4- A:|]
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