Oops, I almost blew it! Even after J-Walk's friendly little reminder the other day.
OK. I have been thinking of late (again) about trying to learn this great tune from Pete Steele. I have two tabs for it, one from Pete Seeger's "How To Play The 5-String Banjo," and a tabledit version I transcribed out of the Art Rosenbaum "Old Time Mountain Banlo" book. There also are 2 tabs in the archive, one by Janolov, and the other came from a bluegrass site, so I don't know anything about it.
There are 5 versions posted in the music archive, but I think my favorite is the one by Chip Arnold. He and I had an off-forum email chat about the tune several years ago when I first got interested in it.
I actually used wikipedia (something I very rarely do), and obtained some information about the area and the history of the war that took place there. Interesting, in that I had always assumed it was more of a violent union strike - I wasn't aware of the breadth of the violence:
The Coal Creek War was an armed labor uprising that took place primarily in Anderson County, in the American state of Tennessee, in the early 1890s. The struggle began in 1891 when coal mine owners in the Coal Creek watershed attempted to replace free coal miners with convicts leased out by the state government. Over a period of just over a year, the free miners continuously attacked and burned prison stockades and company buildings, hundreds of convicts were freed, and dozens of miners and militiamen were killed or wounded in small-arms skirmishes. One historian describes the conflict as "one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in all American labor history."
The Coal Creek War was part of a greater struggle across Tennessee against the state's controversial convict-leasing system, which allowed the state to lease its convicts to mining companies to compete with free labor. The outbreak of the conflict touched off a partisan media firestorm between the miners' supporters and detractors, and brought the issue of convict leasing to the public eye. Although the uprising essentially ended with the arrests of hundreds of miners in 1892, the publicity it generated led to the downfall of Governor John P. Buchanan, and forced the state to reconsider the convict-leasing system. In 1896, when its convict-lease contracts expired, Tennessee's state government refused to renew them, making it one of the first Southern states to end the controversial practice.
Hi Brad, thanks for the kind words. The town of Coal Creek is now named Lake City. I stayed in a motel there several times while at Tennessee Homecoming. I played Coal Creek March there a number of times. i have a 1936 Lomax recording of Pete Steele playing the tune which I got from the Smithsonian folk archives years ago. (just looked for it and I can't find it) It's pretty much the same as what Art Rosenbaum transcribed 20 years later from Mr Steel's playing. Pete Steele played the tune in 2-finger style, switching from index to thumb lead for part of the barre chord rolls. I stay on index lead and cross my thumb up over my index. There are a whole lot of different versions of this tune but I think Steele's is the oldest known and definitely my favorite. I think he claimed to have made the tune himself.
Most of the "armed skermishes" consisted of Company goons firing into unarmed groups of men, women and children. I can't remember the actual name of the song Uncle Dave Macon used to sing about the strike - is was not related to Coal Creek March, which is probably a slight reworking of a turn of the century (19th to 20) parlour guitar piece like Savastapol. Many of these pieces had the same proto bluegrass roll TIMTIMTM as CC March.
I love Pete Steele's version -- Frank Jenkins' Baptist Shout is pretty similar.
There's also a nice Coal Creek March played in G tuning by Dock Boggs and a virtuoso rendition of a G version by Marion Underwood. Dock's version's on YouTube.
Coal Creek March is a great tune, and one of my absolute favorites. I have collected some information about it because I planned to have it as TOTW some time.
First about the tune. There are several different versions. Usually it is played finger picking in open D tuning (f"DF"AD)
The most well known (?) is Pete Steele's recording, first recorded in 1937 by Alan Lomax. This tune has been brought out to word by both Pete Seeger and Art Rosenabum. Here you can listen to short excerpts: amazon.com/Coal-Creek-March/dp...M9O and folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.a...mid=41851 and buy it if you I have tabbed out this version in the tab archive. It is based on the tab in Art Rosenbaums first book: Old Time Mountain Banjo. There is also a simplified tab in Pete Seeger's book The Goofing Off Suite. There are several versions on Youtube, but I especially like this one: youtube.com/watch?v=UwTJbrZUz3I
Roscoe Holcomb has also recorded a cool version in the album An Untamed Sense of Control : artistdirect.com/nad/window/me...tml . Roscoe's version is tabbed out in the tab archive as "Coal Creek".
J.Roy Stalcup has another special up picking style (picking up, picking down, picking up, thumbing) on Digital Library of Appalachia: aca-dla.org/cgi-bin/showfile.e...mp3
Another interesting version is by Marion Underwood on the album "Old Time Mountain Banjo": emusic.com/listen/#/album/vari...0988123/: . Underwood also make some drum sound on the banjo.
Then there are some interesting information about the place Coal Creek, Tennessee.There seems to have been several disasters and incidents at Coal Creek that has been remembered in the music:
First there was the Coal Creek war in 1891, as Brad told about. This inspired Uncle Dave Macon to to song Buddy Won't You Roll Down The Line.
Almost ten years later, December 9, 1911 there was another explosion: coalcreekaml.com/Legacy5.htm . After that the mine has to close down. The musical memory from this is Pete Steele's famouns song. Last pay Day At Coal Creek.
Thanks, Brad, Jan and Don, for all the excellent resources for this song. I first heard it on Stephen Wade's Dancing in the Parlor CD. I had no idea of its background until now.
Hey, Janolov - consider yourself as the dominant co-poster for this tune! I started doing some research into it back in November, then got sidetracked and then panicked when the 30th of Dec got here.
I guess now I really need to start working on getting the tune under my fingers.
Janalov, I believe the the last link in your first bullet is Art Rosenbaum...
... surrounded by his art.
Yes, it may be. It was my first reflexion when I discovered the video that it was Art's art in the background and the player looked a lot like Art, but I thought it was a fake arrangement. Who would post a banjo video with Art Rosenbaum and not announce it? I have expected Art to play the tune much faster. I have C.C.M. by A.R. on an old LP album (Folk Banjo Styles) from the beginning of the 60's and there he plays almost double speed.
That is Art. He still plays out some with the current incarnation of the Skillet Lickers with Phil Tanner. The band plays this area fairly regularly. Like most people in their seventies, Art picks a little more slowly now but he's still really, really good and a fine, gentle natured feller.
Yep Chip & Don are both right, that is most definitely Mr. Rosenbaum.
I had the pleasure of meeting him in the late 1970's and he was about as nice a guy that I have ever met, his Kicking Mule albums were one of the main influences back then of turning me from the dark side of bluegrass and into the light of OT music, nice to see that video as a reminder of what a heck of a player Art is...
After checking out Stephen Ward's liner notes for Coal Creek March in his Dancing in the Parlor cd, I discovered he learned it from Pete Steele's version and also says it was inspired from the mining explosion. He went to visit the site memorializing the miners who died. The following picture is from the link (#2) Jan gives above and shows the Fraterville Miners Circle in Leach Cemetary in Lake City, Tenn.
Great choice, Brad...I've always loved the sound of this song, and it reminds me that I need to go back to work on my two finger picking. I knew nothing of the history of the song, even though I was familiar with the other song, "Buddy, won't you roll down the line", by Uncle Dave Macon (and a livley version by Joel Mabus). Thanks for tying this all together.
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