Annotation:Ladies on the Steamboat

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X:1 T:Ladies on the Steamboat S:Leonard Rutherford (c. 1900-1954, Monticello, Ky.) M:C| L:1/8 Q: D:Columbia 15209-D (78 RPM), Burnett and Rutherford (1928) F:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/ladies-steamboat-0 Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:G g2-|gage dega|b2 ba (b/a/g) ef|gage dged|BGAF G2ef| gage dega|b2 ba (b/a/g) ef|gage dged|BGAF G2|| [F_B]-[G=B]-|[GB]dBA GBAG|BGAG EFGA|BcBA GAcA|BGAF G2[F_B]-[G=B]-| [GB]dBA GBAG|BGAG EFGA|BcBA GAcA|BGAF G2||

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LADIES ON THE/A STEAMBOAT. AKA and see "Tugboat." AKA - "Lady on a Steamboat." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA: AB (Rutherford): AABB (Beisswenger & McCann, Phillips, Titon).

"Billy in the Low Ground" was a favorite tune of Blind Ed Haley, an influential fiddler from northeastern Kentucky. Dick Burnett of Monticello, Wayne County, Ky., who recorded the tune in 1927 (for Columbia Records) with fiddler Leonard Rutherford (c. 1900-1954), recollected he might have learned the tune from Haley. It is known that Burnett's playing partner, fiddler Leonard Rutherford (1900-1954), learned "Blackberry Blossom (4)" from Haley, says Mark Wilson, which suggests they were in contact with the famed fiddler. In any case, the Rutherford and Burnett version, recorded in November, 1927, in Atlanta but released in Feb., 1928, was very influential (through both their tours and their recording) and has become a standard, especially for Wayne County, Kentucky, old-time musicians-"the banjo head usually getting rapped in remembrance of Dick Burnett's wild performance of the piece" (Bobby Fuclher, 1986).

Some similarities to "Steamboat 'Round the Bend" and close similarities to Nebraska fiddler Bob Walters' "Ladies Round the Bend" and "Po'/Poor Black Sheep." See also "Sandy River Belle (2)" and "Sally Johnson." Recorded by the West Virginia band The Kessinger Brothers in 1929 under the title "Tugboat."

Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford