Annotation:Reuban
X:0 T: No Score C: The Traditional Tune Archive M: K: x
REUBAN('S TRAIN). AKA "Old Reuban." OldTime, Song and Breakdown. USA, North Carolina. D Major/Mixolydian. One part. A banjo tune and song which Frank Proffitt pronounced as "one of the oldest simple banjo tunes...it was the first tune generally learned...There are about fifty different verses to this, as everybody added them all along" [Warner]. It was the first tune that Mt. Airy, North Carolina, fiddler and banjo player Tommy Jarrell learned, from a hired-hand named Cockerham on his father's farm. In 1982 he told interviewer Peter Anick that Cockerham played the tune, handed Jarrell the banjo and invited him to play it. Jarrell at first demurred saying he couldn't play the instrument, upon which the hand replied, "Well, it ain't but one string to note and I'll show you that." Jarrell, familiar with the song from the singing of other family members, worked it out in a few minutes. Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, fiddler Gilliam Banmon Grayson's (1887-1930, originally from Ashe County, North Carolina) 1927 tune "Train Forty-Five" derived from “Reuban’s Train.” The oldtimey song "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy" is also a related tune.
Old Reuban's comin' down the track, He has got the throttle back, The rails are a-carryin' me from home. (Frank Proffitt)