Annotation:Noddin' Boy
NODDIN' BOY. AKA and see: "Chapel Hill March," "Coleman's March (1)," "Green Willis (1)," "Miss Finlay's Delight," "New Rigged Ship (1) (The)," "Old Hickory," "Over the River to Charley's," "Piper's Fancy (1)," "Raw Recruit (The)." American, Reel or March (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Noddin' Boy" was in the repertory of fiddler Woodrow Boone (1923-1999), of Turkey Branch, Madison County, N.C., learned from his father John Crate Boone who himself learned it from a neighbor, "Old Man" Vestus Robinson. Mr. Robonson's grandfather emigrated from Ireland and settled at Blue Rock , in the South Toe River Valley in what is now Yancey County, and brought this and other tunes from his native place. Woodrow Boone was a tenth generation descendent of frontiersman Daniel Boone and came from a musical family. He was befriended and researched by fiddler Roger Howell, who captured his extensive repertoire.
"Noddin' Boy" has a number of variants and titles, most of which are duple-time tunes (although Missouri fiddler Art Galbraith played a 6/8 version called "Over the River to Charley's"). The melody can be traced to Scotland where it was published by the Gows as the jig "New Rigged Ship (1) (The)." It may be that "Old Man" Robinson's background was Scots-Irish, from Ulster, and would have had many Scottish tunes in his repertoire.
