Annotation:Brushy Run

Back to Brushy Run

BRUSHY RUN. American, Reel (cut time). USA, West Virginia. G Major. Standard (French Carpenter, Art Stamper) or DGdg (Harvey Sampson) tunings (fiddle). AB. Clay County, West Virginia, fiddler Wilson Douglas identifies the locale of this tune as "over beyond Widen. It was just a big holler, with so much underbrush--some old fiddler was bacheloring there and he just composed this and he called it the 'Brushy Run.' Just a bushy ravine, so to speak. (French) Carpenter (1899-1965) could really play that. Where these young fiddlers get lost is in the bowing over the high part. You do it with the bow. You don't do it with the notes at all!" (interview with Nancy McClellan). Douglas also said it was a Carpenter family tune composed some time around the time of the American Civil War. According to Kerry Blech, Ward Jarvis (W.Va., Ohio) learned the tune from eastern Kentucky fiddler Ed Haley, and that Jarvis played it in standard tuning.

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - Danny Gardella [Phillips].

Printed sources : - Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 39.

Recorded sources: -Augusta Heritage Recordings AHR-004C, Harvey Sampson and the Big Possum String Band - "Flat Foot in the Ashes" (1986/1994. Learned by Calhoun County, W.Va., fiddler Harvey Sampson from his father). Cassette C-7625, Wilson Douglas - "Back Porch Symphony." Rounder 0047, Wilson Douglas - "The Right Hand Fork of Rush's Creek" (1975). Rounder 1131/1132, Ed Hayley - "Forked Deer, vol. 1" (1997).

See also listing at:
Hear French Carpenter's field recording at Slippery Hill [1]

Back to Brushy Run