Annotation:Little Maggie
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LITTLE MAGGIE. AKA - "Hustling Gambler." Old-Time, Bluegrass; Breakdown and Song. USA; western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia. A Mixolydian. Recorded by the Stanley Brothers in 1946, when their music was more old-time than bluegrass in style. Mt. Airy, North Carolina, fiddler Tommy Jarrell remembered the tune "going around" the Round Peak area (where he grew up) around 1915 or 1916, and became quite popular with the younger folk. A tragedy occurred about the same time when his 14 year old cousin, Jullie Jarrell, was tending a fire in the kitchen stove and, thinking it was out, poured kerosine over the wood to renew it which suddenly caused flames to flare and severely burn her. Tommy related:
I was coming from the mill on horseback carrying a sack of cornmeal and all at once I saw the smoke and heard the younguns come running towards me crying, 'Jullie's burnt up and the house is a-fire.' I jumped off the horse and ran as fast as I could to the house--later I though about how much faster I could have gotten there by throwing the meal off and riding the horse, but you don't think clear at times like that. When I reached the door I saw Aunt Susan kneeling on the floor above Julie, weeping, her hands all blistered from beating out the fire with a quilt. Jullie was laying there crying, but there wasn't much we could do for her so we ran to the spring for water to put out the fire in the house. They put Jullie to bed right away--her whole body was burned up to her chin, and at first she cried in pain but after a while she didn't feel anything at all. That evening as she was laying there she asked me to get my banjo and sing "Little Maggie" for her. That was the only thing she wanted to hear--it had just recently come around and everyone seemed to take to it. I expect I played it the best I ever had in my life, with the most feeling, anyway. It seemed to comfort her and pick up her spirits a little, but by the following morning she was dead. (Richard Nevins)
The song appears to have been played in neighboring Grayson County, Virginia, a generation earlier, according to Richard Nevins, which, juxtaposed with what Jarrell remembered about the timing of the introduction of the song to his area, points out how isolated the mountainous regions were around the turn of the 20th century.
Yonder stands little Maggie, a dram-glass in her hand,
She's left me for another, left me for another man.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Recorded sources: Flying Fish 102, New Lost City Ramblers - "20 Years/Concert Performances" (1978). Heritage XXXIII, Ernest East, Lawrence Lowe, Fred Cockerham - "Visits" (1981. Recorded at Tommy Jarrell's New Year's Eve party, 1972). Melodeon 7322, The Stanley Brothers. Rich-R-Tone 423, The Stanley Brothers.
See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
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