OLD JOE [1]. American, Reel. USA, Tennessee. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB. The tune was recorded in 1928 by the Tennessee band Dr. Humphrey Bate and His Possum Hunters, featuring fiddler Oscar Stone (see "Stone's Rag"). The harmonica-playing Bate (1875-1936) was a country physician who graduated from Vanderbilt University and who enjoyed playing music as a sideline. He and his band, the Possum Hunters, were an one of the first 'old-time' bands to broadcast over the air in Nashville (in 1925), and were popular Grand Ole Opry stars. According to Paul Kingsbury's The Encyclopedia of Country Music, Bate learned much of his repertoire as a young man on his father's plantation in middle-Tennessee, and by World War I was fronting two or three bands, which tended to be large (by string-band standards). The Possum Hunters had six or seven individuals in their line-up for their 1928 recording session in Atlanta, Ga., including the twin fiddles of Oscar Stone and Bill Barret. Dr. Humphrey Bate and His Possum Hunters
Additional notes Source for notated version : - Fiddlers Oscar Stone and Bill Barret with Dr. Humphrey Bate and His Possum Hunters (Tenn.) [Phillips].
Printed sources : - Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 172.
Recorded sources : - Brunswick 271 (78 RPM), Dr. Humphrey Bate & His Possum Hunters (1928).
See also listing at : Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
