Annotation:Mocking Bird (1)

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MOCKING BIRD [1]. AKA and see "Listen to the Mockingbird." Old-Time, Bluegrass; Breakdown. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABCC'. A fiddle contest favorite since the turn of the century. "Mocking Bird" is one of the most popular and wide-spread fiddle tunes in modern history, says musicologist Charles Wolfe (Devil's Box, Dec. 1982), while Samuel Bayard (1981) calls it a "universal favorite" with fiddlers. It was popularized as a country fiddle tune in the early days of the Grand Ole Opry, WSM in Nashville, Tenn. by Theron Hale, whose rendition was based on the 1885 song written by "Alice Hawthorne" (a pen-name for songwriter Spetimus Winner). It was in the repertory of Alabama fiddler D. Dix Hollis (1861-1927), who considered it one of "the good old tunes of long ago" (quoted in the Opelika Daily News of April 17, 1926); also played by Buffalo Valley, Pa., region dance fiddler Harry Daddario.

Source for notated version: Clyde Lloyd (Indiana County, Pa., 1952) [Bayard].

Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 269, p. 227. Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pp. 45 & 161.

Recorded sources: Gennett 6604 (78 RPM), 1928, the Tweedy Brothers (Harry, Charles and George, from Wheeling, W.Va., who played twin fiddles and piano). Edison 5362 (78 RPM), 1927, John Baltzell {Baltzell was a native of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, the same home town as minstrel Dan Emmett (d. 1904). Emmett returned to the town, poor, in 1888, and later taught Baltzell to play the fiddle}. Bluebird 5843-B (78 RPM), Theron Hale.