Annotation:Banks of the Arkansas

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X:1 T:Banks of the Arkansas N:From the playing of Bruce Greene M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel N:GDgd tuning (fiddle) Q:"Moderately quick" D:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/banks-arkansas Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:G B-d3 d4| de=fd e2 dB|[G,3G3]A B2d2-|d2ded2B2|A2GG E-DEG| [G,6D6][D2A2]| Bd- d2 d4 |de=fd e2 d2 |+slide+B3c (B/c/B/c/) AA |GABd A2GG|| [G,4E4]{B}cBAA|GGBG A2GG|[G,2E2][E2c2]{B}([Ec]B)AF|G2 BG D2E2| G3 A- BGAF|G2 BG BGAG|[G,2E2][E2c2]{B}([Ec]B)AF|GGBG D2E2| G3 A- BGAF|G2 BGA2G2|[G,2E2][E2c2]{B}([Ec]B)AF|G2 BG D2E2|G4 ([G3B3]A)||

BANKS OF THE ARKANSAS. American, Air or Listening Tune. G Major. GDgd tuning (fiddle). AB. The source for the tune is Shade Sloane, an older fiddler from whom Hiram Stamper (1893-1992, Hindman, Knott County, Kentucky) learned the tune. Jeff Todd Titon (2001) finds the tune related to the Kentucky fiddle tune “Indian Squaw,” and transcribes Stamper's tune under that title (his "Indian Squaw 69C, p. 99). Stamper sang this couplet to the first strain:

Way down yonder on the Arkansas,
Two old Indians and one old sqaw,
Sittin on the banks of the Arkansas.

Then he whistled to the second part, in lieu of words. The title also belongs to a humorous traditional folk-song^[1], beginning:

Prettiest little girl I ever saw,
Lived on the banks of the Arkansas.

Additional notes

Source for notated version: -

Printed sources : -

Recorded sources: - One Man Clapping, Bruce Greene - "Five Miles of Ellum Wood" (1996).

See also listing at:
Hear Bruce Greene's 1996 recording at Slippery Hill [1]

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↑ Lomax and Lomax, Our Singing Country, 1941, 68-69. Collected from the singing of Mrs. Minta Morgan of Bells, Texas. According to Jeff Todd Titon, the melody "is the same as Clyde Davenport's for "Cornstalk Fiddle and a Shoestring Bow."

[1] Lomax and Lomax, Our Singing Country, 1941, 68-69. Collected from the singing of Mrs. Minta Morgan of Bells, Texas. According to Jeff Todd Titon, the melody "is the same as Clyde Davenport's for "Cornstalk Fiddle and a Shoestring Bow."

[1]