Annotation:Poca River Blues

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POCA RIVER BLUES. AKA and see "East Tennessee Blues." Old-Time, Country Rag or Blues. USA, West Virginia. An uncommon title for a fairly well-known tune, recorded by Clendenin, Kanawha Valley, West Virginia fiddler Reese Jarvis (1900-1967) in Chicago in 1929 (with guitarist Dick Justice). Jarvis later sold insurance in Clendenin, and although he was contacted by scholars later in life, he was found to be a difficult interviewee (Tribe, Mountaineer Jamboree, p. 37). Charles Wolfe (Mountains of Music, John Lilly ed., 1999) thinks Kanawha County, West Virginia, fiddler Clark Kessinger (1896-1975) may have learned the tune growing up in the Kanawha Valley. Kessinger re-recorded the tune in the 1966 (for Folkways), although Ken Davidson's liner notes to the album state that he learned “Poca River” from Jarvis. His rendition was much more “bluegrassy” by that time and featured a long pizzicato section. The Poca River is in West Virginia, near Charleston.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Brunswick 358 (78 RPM), Reese Jarvis (1929). County 733, "The Legend of Clark Kessinger" (learned from Reese Jarvis). Folkways 2336, "Clark Kessinger, Fiddler" (1966). Folkways 02337, “Clark Kessinger Live at Union Grove.”

See also listing at:
Hear Jarvis & Justice's 1928 recording on youtube.com [1]

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