|
Blind Fiddler, The
Bluegrass and old-time song and breakdown. Missouri; Arkansas
ARTIST: Words Emma Dusenberry; Collected from Jody Stecher; Snake Baked A Hoecake.
Youtube: Steven Stills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6GJyTcxBsM
Empty Hats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=466u2PsGgMY&feature=related
MP3 Listen: The Blind Fiddler- Jody Stecher
MP3 Listen: The Blind Fiddler- Pete Seeger
SOURCE: Traditional Ballad Index; Mudcat; Folk Index; Arkansas Encyclopedia On-line;
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: 1800's- According to Sing Out the song dates back to about 1850, through Mrs. Emma Dusenberry and was first recorded by Joe Hickerson. Other notes (American industrial Ballads) say the song dates to the last half of the 1800s. Both use the lyrics, "in the blacksmith's shop in the year of 56' to assume the date was 1856, which has not be corroborated by older versions.
RECORDING INFO: The Blind Fiddler
Rt - Old Time Blackberry Blossom
Faulkner, Nolan. Legendary Kentucky Mandolin, Old Homestead OHS 90064, LP (1976), trk# 1
The Blind Fiddler (Traditional)
Atwater-Donnelly. Where the Wild Birds Do Whistle, RIM 1005-2, CD (1997), trk# 7
Gingerthistle. Grandad's Porch, Kudzu KPP 007, CD (1998), trk# 9
Hickerson, Joe. Joe Hickerson, Folk Legacy FSI 039, LP (1970), trk# A.02
McCutcheon, John. How Can I Keep from Singing?, June Appal JA 003, LP (1975), trk# 6a
Reid, Harvey. Steel Drivin' Man, Woodpecker WP 107, Cas (1991), trk# A.07
Rothfield, Jane; and Allan Carr. There and Back, Temple TP 011, LP (1983), trk# B.05a
Seeger, Pete. American Industrial Ballads, Folkways FH 5251, LP (1956), trk# A.02
Stecher, Jody. Snake Baked A Hoecake: Jody Stecher and Friends, Bay 203, LP (1974), trk# 4
Old Time Blackberry Blossom
Rt - Blackberry Blossom; Blind Fiddler
Wine, Melvin. Hannah at the Springhouse, Marimac AHS 2, Cas (1989), trk# 16
RELATED TO: "The Rebel Soldier" "Old Time Blackberry Blossom (minor key)"
OTHER NAMES:
NOTES: Minor key usually Dm 4/4; Typical lyrics are: "I lost my sight in the blacksmith's shop in the year of 'Fifty-six." The singer, with no other trade available, has had to become a wandering fiddler. Not even Doctor Lane of San Francisco could help him. He hopes his family is safe and well.
The song and instrumental "The Blind Fiddler" was collected by Belden (p. 446, 1 text)
in 1923. It's been reworked by Eric Andersen (considered a different version than the original or at least with different original lyrics), Steven Stills (wrote additional lyrics), Joe Hickerson, Pete Seeger and others. Jody Stecher does a fine version with fiddle solos (see version 2).
The traditional lyrics seem to come directly from a single source Emma Dusenberry and various adaptations of her version were made by Joe Hickerson and then Pete Seeger.
In the mid-sixties Eric Andersen wrote a new version of "The Blind Fiddler" (SO! 16:6). Andersen's new lyrics and altered melody tell of conditions in the coal mining region of Hazard, Kentucky. Copyright 1966, Deep Fork Music; Recorded on "Bout Changes and Things" Vanguard VSD-79206
BLIND FIDDLER (Eric Andersen)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfs0czJ7Elo&feature=related
I lost my eyes in the Harlan pits in the year of '56
While pulling a faulty drill chain that was out of fix
It bounded from the wheel and there concealed my doom
I am a blind fiddler far from my home.
I went up into Louisville to visit Dr. Lane
He operated on one of my eyes still it is the same
The Blue Ridge can't support me it just ain't got the room
Would a wealthy colliery owner like to hear a fiddler's tune?
With politics and threatening tones the owners can control
And the unions have all left us a long, long time ago
Machinery lying scattered, no drill sounds in the mine
For all the good a collier is, he might as well be blind.
Was a time I worked a long fourteen for a short eight bucks a day
You're lucky if you're mining, that's what the owners say
And if you've got complaining, you'd better aim to keep it low
How come they took my food stamps, does anybody know?
My father was a miner's son, a miner still is he
But his eyes have took a fever, and there's a shaking in his knee
The holes are closing rapidly, he cannot understand
Machine has got a bigger arm than him or any other man.
Plastic for the windows, cardboard for the door
The baby's mouth is twisting, it'll twist a little more
They need welders in Chicago falls hollow to the floor
How many miners made that trip a thousand times or more.
The lights are burning bright, there's laughter in the town
But the streets are dark and empty, there ain't a miner to be found
They're in some lonesome hollow, where the sun refuse to shine
And the baby's screams are muffled in the sweetness of the wine.
With a wife and four young children depending now on me
Whatever can I serve them with? My God, I cannot see
Through the Blue Ridge Mountains I am content to roam
I am a blind fiddler, far from my home
Yes, I am a blind fiddler, far from my home.
Biography of Emma Hays Dusenbury (1862–1941) by Robert B. Cochran, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville:
Emma Hays Dusenbury was an outstanding traditional singer; her work is represented by some 116 songs in the nation’s leading folksong archive at the Library of Congress.
Emma Hays was born on January 9, 1862, probably in Habersham County or Rabun County, Georgia, to William Jasper Hays and Mary Jane Pitts. She came to Arkansas with her parents and four siblings in 1872, staying first in Crittenden County but eventually settling in Baxter County, near Gassville. Sometime after 1880, she married Ernest Dusenbury, who was from Illinois. Two years later, she had a daughter. In about 1894 or 1895, she suffered a serious illness that left her blind.
Before settling near Mena (Polk County) in about 1907, Dusenbury lived an itinerant life; her husband worked railroad and packing plant jobs, and the whole family picked cotton in the summers. Dusenbury’s husband died in 1933, leaving the family to live in poverty.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, guided by F. M. Goodhue, a teacher at a nearby radical labor school, Commonwealth College, Dusenbury was recorded by some of the best-known folksong collectors in the region and nation. John Lomax, Vance Randolph (whose Ozark Folksongs lists November 1928 as the date of his first collecting from her), and Sidney Robertson all visited, as did poet John Gould Fletcher and Little Rock (Pulaski County) composer and symphony director Laurence Powell. All were greatly impressed; Lomax wrote in his autobiography that she sang continuously for two days and recorded more traditional Anglo-American ballads than any other singer.
Dusenbury’s one brush with celebrity came in 1936 when she sang in Little Rock as part of the celebration of Arkansas’s statehood centennial. Her photograph appeared in the newspaper, along with two feature articles about her (one written by Powell) that are even today the primary sources of information about her. Powell later based the final movement of his Second Symphony on three of her traditional songs.
Dusenbury’s repertoire was more than simply large—it was remarkably varied, including many rarely recorded songs in addition to the old Anglo-American ballads especially prized by the collectors of the period. “Abraham’s Proclamation,” for example, a scoffing number denouncing President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and believed by scholars to originate in blackface minstrelsy, has been collected from no other singer.
Dusenbury died on May 6, 1941; she is buried, as Emmer Duesberry, in the small community of Rocky (Polk County), near Mena.
Traditional Ballad Index: Blind Fiddler, The
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1923 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: homesickness poverty rambling separation fiddle injury family doctor hardtimes music
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Belden, p. 446, "The Blind Fiddler" (1 text)
Darling-NAS, p. 364, "The Blind Fiddler" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 55, "The Blind Fiddler" (1 text)
DT, BLINDFID*
Roud #7833
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "The Blind Fiddler" (on PeteSeeger13, AmHist1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Blind Man's Song" (theme)
cf. "Jilson Setters's Blind Song" (theme)
cf. "The Blind Man's Regret" (theme)
NOTES: Until this century, there was nothing resembing a social safety net for the victims of industrial accidents -- in particular, no workers' compensation, and little chance of compensation by the employer.
Pete Seeger dates this song from 1850, with no supporting documentation; as the first line reads "I lost my eyes in the blacksmith shop in the year of '56", this date is doubtful. It has the feel of the mid-19th century about it, but I've dated it only back to the field recording for safety's sake. - PJS
Joe Hickerson, who probably would know, implies that this is the earliest recording known to him, though the fact that there is also a version in Belden implies that it is older. He speculates that it is derived from the earlier "The Rebel Soldier"(primarily on the basis of the final line; "I am a (blind fiddler/rebel soldier) and far from my home." - RBW
FINAL NOTES: The song is related to "The Rebel Soldier"(primarily on the basis of the final line; "I am a (blind fiddler/rebel soldier) and far from my home" and "Old Time Blackberry Blossom" which is played in a minor key also. It's in the repertoire of fiddler Jon Cooper from Maine.
According to Sing Out the song dates back to about 1850, through Mrs. Emma Dusenberry and was first recorded by Joe Hickerson. Other notes (American industrial Ballads) say the song dates to the last half of the 1800s. Both use the lyrics, "in the blacksmith's shop in the year of 56' " to assume the date was 1856, which has not be corroborated by older versions.
THE BLIND FIDDLER- Emma Dusenberry
MP3 Listen: The Blind Fiddler- Jody Stecher
[Fiddle]
I lost my eyes in the blacksmith's shop in the year of '56
While dusting out a T planch that was out of fix
It bounded from my tongs and there revealed my doom
I am a blind fiddler and far from my home
I've been to San Francisco, I've been to Dr. Lane
He operated on one of my eyes but nothing could be gained
He told me that I'd never see and it's no cause to mourn
I am a blind fiddler and far from my home
I have a wife and three little ones depending who now on me
To share all my troubles, whatever they might be
I hope that they'll be careful while I'm condemmed to roam
I am a blind fiddler and far from my home
[Fiddle]
|