Annotation:Buck Hord

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X:1 T:Buck Hord N:From the playing of Alva Greene (Elliot County, Ky.), recorded in the field by N:Guthrie Meade and Mark Wilson, April, 1975. M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel N:AEae tuning (fiddle) D:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/buck-hord Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:A P:A ECEG FEDF|ECEG F(D[D2F2])|ECEG FEDF|ECEG A2A2:|e2e2e2 e-f P:B edcA AcBA|cA2A [A,2E2](e/f/4g/4|a)ecA AcBA|cABc A2 (e/f/4g/4| a)ecA AcBA|cAA2 [A,2E2](e/f/4g/4|a)ecA AcBA| cABc A2A2|| P:A' AEAg fedf|eceg f(d[d2f2])|ecea fedf|eceg a2aa| eceg fedf|eceg f(d[d2f2])|ecea fedf|eceg a2|| P:B' |:(e/f/4g/4|a)ecA AcBA|cA A2 [A,2E2](e/f/4g/4|a)ecA AcBA|cABG A2:|2 cABG A2A2||

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BUCK HORD. AKA - "Buck Herd," "Buck Hoard." American, Reel (cut time) USA, east Kentucky. A Major. AEae tuning (fiddle). ABA'AB'B. The tune is associated with fiddler Alva Greene. Jeff Titon (2001) finds the tune related to the better-known "Rye Straw (1)." The curious title, suggest John Harrod and Mark Wilson, is perhaps derived from a mishearing of the title "Buck Horn," the name of a creek in Breathitt County, Ky. The tune title is mentioned in a poem by Richard L. Dawson entitled "The Hoosier Fiddle," printed in the Indiana State-Sentinel [Indianapolis] of July 29, 1885, p. 6:

Bring up the Hoosier fiddle,
And play me the rollicking reels,
That gave such joy to the country boy,
And shake the old farmer’s heels;
Put by the waltz and the schottische,
And the operatic airs.
And give me a whirl with the Hoosier girl,
To the tunes that lighten my cares!

Set the wild “Gray Eagle” screaming,
Let the “Rye Straw” tickle my ear,
And fully as rich as old “Leather Breeches”
Are “Burnt Woods” and “The Forked Deer.”
Chase the “Possum Up the Gum Stump,”
From “Natchez Under the Hill.”
Wave the “Mullen Stalk” from “Hanging Rock,”
O’er the “Sunk Lands” dark and still!
Then fiddle me down to “Clear Creek,”
To that “Nine-Mile Island” of yours,
While the current rolls o’er “Mussel Shoals,”
And into “Broad Ripple” pours.
Then stir up “Hell on the Wabash,”
Let us hear “Five Miles Out of Town,”
“The Jaybird,” when “The Cackling Hen”
“The Black Cat’s” wail shall drown!

In “The Awkward Reel” comes dancing
“Sally Goodin” and rough “Buck Horn,”
And “The Wagoner” passes by waving grasses
And the rustle of “Yaller Corn.”
With “Billy in the Low Grounds,”
The “Injun Creek” we ford.
Then “Jump Up, Joe,” for still, you know,
There’s “Sugar in the Gourd.”

Then tune for the rich fantasias,
“Big Piney” so plaintive and slow,
Let “The Wild Goose” call, and the echoes fall,
From the “Walls of Jericho;”
So come to the rare “Lost Injun,”
And play it again and again,
Let its golden streams flow on in my dreams
And play no other then.

I listen and dream of my boyhood
In the heart of the Hoosier hills,
And the old days rise before my eyes
When the fiddle my memory thrills;
I think of the farmer singing
While the dinner is on the fire,
And the strange wild calls the fiddler bawls,
While the dancers never tire.

Yes, bring up your resonant fiddle,
And play for me far in the night,
Till the cares of the day are swept away
And sorrow has taken flight;
For all the heaven of music
No sweeter melody swells
Than the fiddle sings from bow and strings,
Where the happy Hoosier dwells.

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