Annotation:Peeler Creek
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PEELER CREEK WALTZ. Old-Time, Waltz. G Major ('A' part) & E Minor ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Matthiesen): AABB (Johnson, Phillips). Blind mandolinist and singer Kenny Hall learned the tune when young (c. 1940's) in Texas from a woman named Clara Desmond and the Desmond Family of Texas. Said Hall: "She was the piano player. She kept that steady rhythm. She made that band keep a steady rhythm, too. Not too fast, not too slow. She was kind of the rhythm base of the family. Oh, she was a lot of fun. She didn't like drinking, but she would allow it as long as you went outdoors to do it." An alternate title, “Feed Your Babies Onions,” is sometimes employed for the tune, derived from Hall who sang these words to the first strain:
Put bells upon the sheep so the blind boys find them in the garden after dark,
Bells upon the sheep so the blind boys find them in the night.
Oh, feed your babies onions so you can find them in the garden after dark,
Feed your babies onions, so you can find them in the dark.
Hall explained the words were made up during the Second World War, after the Red Light district nearby was shut down. Sheep had replaced the interred Japanese gardeners to keep lawns groomed, said Hall, leading one old German factory worker to suggest the bells might be useful to those 'visually challenged' who were in need of relief.
The melody resembles in some parts “Temperance Reel.” The tune is occasionally played in Ireland as a Mazurka, learned from American sources.
Source for notated version: Jim Ringer via Jay Ungar (West Hurley, New York) [Matthiesen]; Ron Kane and Skip Gorman [Phillips].
Printed sources: Hall (Kenny Hall's Music Book), 1999; p. 125. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician's Occasional: Waltz, Air and Misc.), No. 1, 1991; p. 4. Matthiesen (Waltz Book II), 1995; p. 43. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 2), 1995; p. 295.
Recorded sources: North Star Music, The Kells - "The Celtic Voyage" (2000). Philo 1008, "Kenny Hall" (1978). Joe Ryan - "An Buachaill Dreoite"
See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Hear/see the tune played on youtube.com [2]