PORTER. American, Reel (cut time). C Major (1st part) & A Minor (2nd part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was in the repertoire of Grease Gravy Hill (Paoli), Indiana, fiddler Lotus Dickey (1911-1989), who said he had learned it as a boy around 1926 from a local Orange County, Indiana, fiddler named Poindexter "Deck" Ainsworth, who was originally from the Arkansas Ozarks Mountains. Ainsworth himself had learned the tune, sans title, from a man named Porter, and so just called it "Porter".
Additional notes
Source for notated version: -
Printed sources : -
Recorded sources: - Vigortone VT-1911, Lotus Dickey - "Down the Pike and other Fiddle Tunes from Orange County, Indiana" (2013).
See also listing at:
Hear Lotus Dickey's recording at Slippery Hill [1], at Dr. Dosido's site [2], and at youtube.com [3].
Read Dillon Bustin's article on Lotus Dickey, "The Virtues of Lotus Dickey: Sitting at the Feet of Lotus", Country Dance and Song vol. 20, March 1990, pp. 7-13 [4]