Annotation:Buck Creek Girl (1)
X:1 T:Buck Creek Girls [1] N:From the playing of fiddler Doc Roberts (1897-1978, Madison County, Tenn.), N:recorded in the field in 1954 by James Roberts. M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel Q:"Fast" D:https://soundarchives.berea.edu/items/show/3181 Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:G DE|G2g2 gedc|BABc dBGF|.G2 [Bg]a gedc|BGAG G2_B2-| =B2 ge dged|B2 ge dBAF|G2g2 dged|BGAF G2(3DEF| G2Bc d2d2|BABc d-BAF|GABc dedc|BGAG GDEF| GABc dcdc|BABc dBAF|GABc dedc|BGAF G2|| A-|Be-ef e3g|fedf edBA|Bdef e2g2|fgaf gfed| Be-ef e3g|fedf edBA|Bdef e2g2|fgaf g2ed| Be3 e4|fedf edBA|Be-ef e2ge|fgaf g2ed| Be-ef e3g|fedf edBA|Bdef e2g2 |fgaf g2||
BUCK CREEK GIRL(S)/GAL [1]. AKA and see "Wild Horse," "Old Dad," "Stony Point (1)," "Pigtown Fling." American, Reel (cut time). USA; southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky, Arkansas. "Buck Creek Girl" was in the repertoire of Fiddlin' Cowan Powers 1877-1952? (Russell County, southwestern Va.) and recorded by him in 1924 for Victor, although the side was not issued. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountains fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Randolph, who said Ozarks fiddlers consider the tune "ancient and difficult to play," thought the tune "sounds like common old 'Stoney Point.'" However, there were two "Buck Creek Girl" tunes extent in the upland South. One was a derivative of "Wild Horse" or "Stony Point", while the other, musically unrelated, was a derivative of "Buffalo Gals" (see "Buck Creek Girls (2)."
Charles Wolfe (1982) identified a tune by this title as a driving banjo tune recorded in the 1920's by eastern Kentucky musicians, and a number of versions from Kentucky musicians were captured in 20th century field recordings. The reel has some antiquity in Kentucky under the "Buck Creek" title. The title "Buck Creek Girls" appears in a number of the Berea Tune Lists, compiled as a class project by John Smith's English class at the Kentucky college in 1915, along with another local title for the tune, "Rocklick Girl." Interestingly, points out researcher Steve Green, although the tune has wide currency in the upland South as "Stoney Point" and "Wild Horse," the Berea lists do not cite those titles[1]. Words to the tune were collected in 1917 by Cecil Sharp and Maude Karpeles during their Appalachian collecting tour:
Buck Creek Girls want to go to Cripple Creek,
Cripple Creek girls want to go to town.
and,
"Buck Creek girls, don't you want to go to Somerset?
Somerset girl, don't you want to go to town?
However, it is not known to what tune the 1917 words were set.
- ↑ Steve Green, "The Berea Tuen Lists", Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 57:2, 1995, p. 11.