Annotation:Coal Valley
X:1
T:Coal Valley
S:The Stripling Brothers, Charlie (1896-1966) and Ira (1898-1967), west Alabama.
M:C|
L:1/8
Q:"Moderate"
R:Country Rag
D:Decca 5547 (78 RPM), The Stripling Brothers (1936)
F:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/coal-valley
Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz
K:C
+slide+cage- edc2|+slide+cage- edc2|+slide+FdcA- AGF2|+slide+FdcA- AGF2|
BABa- age2|+slide+BABA- AB2 (d|e2)c2A2G2|+slide+cage- edc2|
+slide+cage- edc2|+slide+FdcA- AGF2|+slide+FdcA- AGF2|BABa- age2|
+slide+BABA- AB2 (B|c2) A2 GE3|{B}c2||(_E2=E)G A2|G2 cA EGA2|
[M:2/4]G2c2 |[M:C|]FGAd- dcAF-|FA2c d2Ac|BABa- age2| +slide+BABA- AB2 d-|
e2c2A2GG|EEAG- GGcA| GcAE G2c2|FGAd- dcAF-|
FA2c d2Ac|BABa- age2| +slide+BABA- AB2 B-| c2A2 GE3|[M:2/4]c2 AB||"last"c4||
COAL VALLEY. Old-Time, Country Rag or Two-Step (cut time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Recorded by Lamar County, west Alabama fiddler Charlie Stripling (1896-1966) for Decca Records in a March, 1936, session in New Orleans. The tune was named for a mining camp where Charlie and his brother Ira (1898-1967), The Stripling Brothers, performed, two counties away from their west Alabama home. Coal Valley, also known as Cormick, is an unincorporated community in Walker County, Alabama, named for the abundance of coal in the surrounding area, developed after the completion of the Georgia Pacific Railway. A post office operated under the name Cormick from 1890 to 1891 and under the name Coal Valley from 1891 to 1951.
Charlie Stripling would have remembered the 1920's coal strikes in Walker County and elsewhere in the state, which ended in a defeat for the United Mine Workers union which had lead a strike against the operators of the state's coal mines. The union was racially integrated which heightened concerns that the union gain power, and African-Americans bore the brunt of the resulting violence. One of the union's demands was a cessation of the use of convict labor in the mines. Stripling composed this and other tunes (see "Kennedy Rag") in a form he characterized as a "ragtime-breakdown" in response to the demand form more modern dances, such as the Fox Trot and Two-Step.