Annotation:Nancy Blevins

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NANCY BLEVINS. Old-Time, Breakdown & Song. USA, southwestern Va., western North Carolina. ADad tuning (Albert Hash). The melody is known as a Surry County, North Carolina, regional tune. Kerry Blech queried Kilby Spencer, Albert Hash's nephew, about the tune. Kilby and Albert discussed it in a c. 1970's taped interview, wherein Albert Hash said he learned the tune from Jim Reedy, who learned the song from his father, Bob Reedy. Albert recalled:

That was one that my grandfather--he had a cousin named Nancy Blevins...and it was back just after the Civil War for he said he could remember dancing to that tune with a dress on, and boys would a dress for a couple years like little girls did back then. But this tune--this girl had made up this tune of Nancy Blevins. She was a great fiddler. I tried to find out something about her through some people that lived down there, but the man was not old enough to know anything about it. My grandfather could remember one verse that went into the tune. "I've played this fiddle till it cramps my hand, nary another tune till I get another dram.

Kerry says, "From the interview, it looks like his grandfather died when he was 84, sometime in the early (19)40s." There was an actual Nancy Blevins. Carl Barron searched and found a family history in which it was recalled that "Nancy used to play the fiddle and would play at the Healing Springs Hotel." The history recorded: "1. son of William (Bolen Bill) Baker married Nancy Blevins (11/5/1852 - 1/30/1939) daughter of Alvis and Martha Blevins on 4/27/1871 in Ashe County by R.K. Pearce, Justice of the Peace."

Some find similarities between this tune and the first strain of Norman Edmonds' "Hawks and Eagles."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Rounder 0058, Albert Hash & Thornton Spencer - "Old Originals, vol. 2" (1978).

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Hear/see versions on youtube.com [2] [3]