Annotation:Flannery's Dream

Tune properties and standard notation

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FLANNERY'S DREAM. AKA - "Son of Hober." Old-Time, Bluegrass; Breakdown. A Minor/Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). There are several tunes played by Kentucky fiddlers called "Flannery's Dream," sometimes under the title "Flander's Dream" (although that is also the name of a different tune in the key of 'C') or "Flandery's Dream." Warner Waton tells the story that Flannery was supposedly a Revolutionary War fiddler who was under a sentence of death. The commanding officer, knowing he could play, agreed to set him free if Flannery could play him a tune he hadn't heard. Flannery dreamt this tune the night before his scheduled execution. John Hartford thinks Flannery may have been a Civil War figure rather than a Revolutionary War soldier, and the story is similar to one told about Solly Carpenter (see note for "Camp Chase"). Hartford notes the Flannery family is a large and old one from Elliott County, Kentucky. Another common story attached to the tune (and told by Alva Greene, for one) is that a man named Flannery dreamed this tune and won a contest with it (Hartford, 1996). Bluegrass multi-instumentalist Ricky Skaggs recorded a version called "Son of Hober," however, the tune has currency among bluegrass musicians as "Flannery's Dream," apparently popularized by Scaggs. Alva Greene's version is recognizable as a precursor to the bluegrass version.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Berea AC007, Roger Cooper (Garrison, Ky.) - "Snakewinder." County CD 2714, Brad Leftwich - "Say Old Man." Rounder 0151, Ricky Skaggs (appears as "Son of Hober," a title which honors Skaggs' father). Rounder 0392, John Hartford - "Wild Hog in the Red Brush (and a Bunch of Others You Might Not Have Heard)" {1996. Learned from Ricky Skaggs who learned it from Sanford Kelly}. Rounder Records 036, Alva Greene (et al) - "Traditional Fiddle Music of Kentucky, Vol. 1: Up the Ohio and Licking Rivers." CO 2714, Brad Leftwich & Linda Higginbotham - "Say Old Man." Rounder Records 0215, James Bryan - "The First of May." Shanachie Records 6040, Gerry Milnes & Lorriane Lee Hammond - "Hell Up Coal Holler" (1999. Learned from an old Kentucky fiddler, Santford Kelly). Yodel-Ay-Hee YOD 011, Bruce Molsky - "Warring Cats." Gerry Milnes - "Old Time Music." Robin Kessinger - "Road Kessinger." The Kessingers - "Roots and Branches." Blue Road - "Its Been a Long Road."

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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Tune properties and standard notation