Annotation:Banks of the Arkansas

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BANKS OF THE ARKANSAS. AKA and see "Indian Squaw (2)." American, Air or Listening Tune. G Major. GDgd tuning (fiddle). One part. The source for the tune is Shade Sloane, an older fiddler from whom Hiram Stamper (1893-1991, Hindman, Knott County, Kentucky) learned the tune. Jeff Todd Titon (2001) finds the tune related to the Kentucky fiddle tune “Indian Squaw (2),” and transcribes Stamper's tune under that title (his "Indian Squaw 69C, p. 99). Stamper sang this couplet to the beginning of the tune:

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

Then whistled afterwards, in lieu of words. Bruce Greene's version is similar to Stamper's original. 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

Printed sources : - Titon (Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes), 2001; No. 69C, p. 99 (appears as "Indian Squaw").

Recorded sources : - One Man Clapping, Bruce Greene - "Five Miles of Ellum Wood" (1996). Dave Bragger & Susan Platz - "King's Lament: Old-Time Fiddle Duets" ().

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."

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