Annotation:Cumberland Gap (1)
X:1 T:Cumberland Gap [1] S:Uncle Am Stuart (1853-1926, Morristown, Tennessee) M:C| L:1/8 D:Vocalion 14839 (78 RPM), Uncle Am Stuart (1924) F:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74O2Yl-DwSw F:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/cumberland-gap-0 Z:Andrew Kuntz K:G ((3ABc||d2) (3cBA GBAc|Be2f e2((3ABc|d2) BA GBAG|EG2A G3B| dedB GBeB|edef efge|dedB GBAG|EG2A G3B| dedB GBeB|edef efge|dedB GBAG|EG2A G4|| d2ga bgag|eaab (3aba ge|dgga bgag|(eg)ga g2(3age| dega bgag|eaab (3aba ge|dgga bgag|(eg)ga g2e2||
CUMBERLAND GAP [1]. AKA - "Tumberland Gap." American, Reel (cut time). USA; Arkansas, southwest Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, western North Carolina, Alabama. G Major (most versions): A Major: D Major (Tommy Jarrell). Standard, DGdg (Harvey Sampson) or ADad (Tommy Jarrell/Bruce Molsky) tunings (fiddle). ABCC'DD (Phillips): AABB (Thede): AABBCC (Brody). The Cumberland Gap is a pass in the Appalachians between upper Tennessee and Kentucky. It is through this passage in the mountains that Daniel Boone in 1773 led a group of pioneers into Kentucky along his famous Wilderness Road, an event famous in American history that association with may have helped to popularize the melody (or, rather, populaize the title for a fiddle tune, as there are several different tunes that are called "Cumberland Gap"). The tune is very wide-spread throughout the upland South and many variants exist, along with some unrelated tunes that bear the same title. Alan Jabbour has written that it dates "well back" in the 19th century, and, while it bears melodic resemblance to some Irish reels in part, its derivation is yet to be determined. Mike Yates (2002) says that Bascom Lamar Lunsford maintained that "Cumberland Gap" was a speeded-up version of the ballad "Bonny James Campbell" (also rendered as a southern fiddle tune) while Yates finds the Niel Gow's "Skye Air" carries a "faint suggestion" of the Appalachian standard. Still, Yates admits there seems to be no early printings of the tune.
Various couplets have been set to the tune. The Carolina Ramblers sang on a test pressing in 1932:
Me and my wife and my wife's Pap,
Walked all the way through the Cumberland Gap.
Lay down boys, take a little nap,
Forty-nine miles of the Cumberland Gap.
My and my wife, several little chaps,
We built a home on the Cumberland Gap.
The Cumberland Gap's an awful place,
Can't get the water for to wash your face.
Similarly, forty years later banjo player Dent Wimmer of Floyd, Floyd County, Virginia, sang:
My and my wife and seventeen chaps,
Walked all the way to Cumberland gap.
Cumberland Gap's an awful dry place,
You can't get water to wash your face.
Jabbour found 32 recordings of tunes with the title "Cumberland Gap" in the Library of Congress sound archives, while Bruce Greene and John Harrod's field recordings of Kentucky fiddlers alone yielded fifty-two performances of the title. One of the earliest versions was recorded on an Edison Bell cylinder by Allen Sisson. The tune was played by Rock Ridge, Alabama, fiddlers c. 1920 (Devil's Box, vol. 17, #2, p. 20). It was in the repertoires of Fiddlin' Cowan Powers 1877-1952? (Russell County, southwest Va.) who recorded it in 1924 for Victor {though it was unissued}, and African-American fiddler Cuje Bertram of Kentucky's Cumberland Plateau region (Bertram recorded it on a 1970 home recording made for his family, see "Cumberland Gap (4)"). "Cumberland Gap" was also in repertoire of J. Dedrick Harris, from eastern Tennessee, who fiddled regularly with Bob Taylor in his run for Governor of the state in the late 1800's. Harris moved to western North Carolina in the 1920's and influenced a generation of fiddlers including the Helton brothers, Manco Sneed, Bill Hensley, and Marcus Martin. In the Round Peak region of western North Carolina the melody was known by the title "Tumberland Gap" for many years until the isloation of the area broke down. Near Round Peak, Mt. Airy, North Carolina, fiddler Tommy Jarrell (d. 1986) remembered the tune "came around" the region when he was a young man, around 1915, and was not known before then. The tune was mentioned by William Byrne who described a chance encounter with West Virginia fiddler 'Old Sol' Nelson during a fishing trip on the Elk River. The year was around 1880, and Sol, whom Byrne said was famous for his playing "throughout the Elk Valley from Clay Courthouse to Sutton as...the Fiddler of the Wilderness," had brought out his fiddle after supper to entertain (Milnes, 1999). Webster County, W.Va., fiddler Edden Hammons also played "Cumberland Gap", recorded at his home in 1947 by researcher Louis Watson Chappell. Fiddler Allen Sisson (1873-1951), from the Georgia/Tennessee border, travelled to New York in February, 1925, to record his version of "Cumberland Gap" for Victor Records. Sisson cut eight sides that day, accompanied on each by Victor's ubiquitous studio pianist John F. Burckhardt, a versatile musician who, in addition to backing a variety of singers and instrumentalists in different genres, proved adept at backing fiddlers such as Sisson, John Baltzell, and Harold Veo, along with banjo players Fred Van Eps and Shirley Spaulding. The "Cumberland Gap" title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountains fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954.
