Annotation:Morris Allen's Brickyard Joe

Back to Morris Allen's Brickyard Joe

MORRIS ALLEN'S BRICKYARD JOE. AKA and see "Brickyard Joe (2)." Source Buddy Thomas (Ky.) learned several tunes from Morris Allen, a older fiddler from Portsmouth, Ohio. Thomas told Mark Wilson and Guthrie Meade (liner notes to Buddy's album "Kitty Puss" and Old Time Music, 21, Summer 1976):

A lot of my fiddle tunes I learned from Morris Allen...He's getting near 80 but he's still a pretty good old fiddler. Back in the '30's, he was a bachelor and had a good job in a stell mill and he used to like to get all the fiddlers together. His uncle John Kiebler was a real good fiddler and Clark Kessinger would come stay at Morris' house for a week or two. I first met him when I was out fox hunting. Morris had lost some dogs and he had his fiddle with him. And I then got to hearing him and different good fiddlers around Portsmouth and the fiddle sounded so pretty that I just had to get into it and learn those tunes. (OTM, pp. 10-11. There is a picture of Morris on page 10.)

The tune bears little resemblance to the more common "Brickyard Joe (1)" of Doc Roberts.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Rounder CD0380, Roger Cooper (Lewis County, Ky.) - "Going Back to Old Kentucky" (1996. Learned from Morris Allen).