Don Borchelt - Posted - 01/17/2014:  06:45:17

I love cake and I love puddin',

I'd give it all away to see Sally Goodin'.

Sally Goodin is an old, old tune; it appears to go back at least to the Civil War.   On June 30, 1922, two fiddlers from Texas, Henry C. Gilliand and A. C. Eck Robertson, walked into the Victor Talking Machine Company studio in New York City, ready to make records.  On the first day, they recorded four sides, Arkansas Traveler, Apple Blossom, Forked Deer, and Turkey in the Straw, with Guilliand playing lead, and Robertson backing him up with rhythm and harmony in a manner that western fiddlers call "seconding," a technique not often found in traditional Appalachian fiddling.   The Victor executives must have heard something they liked from the second fiddle, because the next day, Robertson returned alone to record three more sides- two were medleys,  Brilliancy with Bill Cheatum, and Sally Johnson with Billy in the Lowground, and then one more tune that he called Sallie Gooden.   Victor quickly released a test pressing with Sallie Gooden on top, in "cross" tuning (AEae), with Arkansas Traveler on the flip side.  The test pressing proved popular, so in April, 1923, Victor released a full pressing, which turned out to be a big seller.  Four years before the Bristol Sessions, many consider this to be the first country music recording ever released.  Robertson's remarkable variations are still widely imitated by fiddlers today.

Eck Robertson's Sally Goodin, 1922

Sally Goodin is an almost universal tune, it has been long known throughout the South and West, from Texas to the Georgia Piedmont, and all the way up the Appalachians to at least Pennsylvania.  Over the rest of the decade, the golden era of old time music, Fiddlin' John Carson would record it for Vocalion in 1923, Uncle Am Stuart would cut a version for Okeh in 1924, G.B. Grayson in 1927, and Clayton McMichen with Riley Puckett for Columbia in 1929.  Listen to Puckett's bass runs, they reportedly drove his musical companions crazy.

Fiddlin' John Carson's Sally Goodin, 1923

Uncle Am Stuart's Sally Goodin, 1924

G.B. Grayson's Sally Goodin, 1927

Clayton McMichen's Sally Goodin, 1929

Went to the creek and the creek was muddy,

So I kissed Sally Goodin' 'til she couldn't stand steady.

If the Depression brought a temporary slowdown in commercial country music, it also saw the the first efforts to use the new recording technology to preserve traditional music by scholars.  The Library of Congress musicologists Alan and Elizabeth Lomax would record Sally Goodin many times during their legendary collecting trips, including William H. Stepp in Salyersville, Kentucky and Luther Strong in Hazard, Kentucky, in October, 1937, and Marcus Martin (who brought us Shove That Pigs Foot a Little Closer to the Fire),  and Bill Hensley in Asheville, North Carolina, in August, 1941.

William H. Stepp's Sally Goodin. 1937

Luther Strong's Sally Goodin, 1937

Marcus Martin's Sally Goodin, 1941 

Bill Hensley's Sally Goodin, 1941

Two other cultural icons were recorded playing Sally Goodin in the 40s.  Woody Guthrie sang and played the tune on fiddle for Folkways Records founder Moses Asch in 1944, accompanied by the great Sonny Terry on harmonica, and  Cisco Houston on guitar.  Terry's harmonica work in his chuggin cross-harp country blues stlye is remarkably fiddle-like.  Sally Goodin was also in the repertoire of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and while he never released it comercially, a recording was made in October, 1947, as part of a pre-recorded radio performance for the Tiffany Music Company of Oakland, California, the famous Tiffany Transcriptions. This features a classic Texas Playboys line-up, with Tommy Duncan doing the lead vocal, Bob Wills and Joe Holley on twin fiddles, Millard Kelso on piano, Eldon Shamblin on guitar, and Herb Remington on steel.  Ahhh, Kelso!

Woody Guthrie's Sally Goodin, 1944

Bob Wills' Sally Goodin, 1947

The meat on the goose and the marrow on the bone,

The devil on the hillside don’t you hear him groan;

Turkey playin’ fiddle up on the melon vine,

The goose chewin’ tobacco while the duck drinkin’ wine.

Like my pie, like my puddin’,

Love that gal that they call Sally Goodin’

Three years later, in February,1950, the year I was born, Thomas Lee "Tommy" Jackson would show up at a recording studio set up by Mercury Records at the old Gibson Hotel, in Fountain Square, in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, the city where I was born and raised.   Like Robertson in 1922, it would be the first recording session of his musical career.  He would record two tunes that day; the first was Black Mountain rag, and the second, Sally Goodin.  Mercury would release them on a 45rmp record a month later.  In 1958, after a now well-known Jackson had moved to Dot Records, Mercury would include his Sally Goodin on an LP called Tommy Jackson's Square Dance Fiddle Favorites.  I would stumble across that album about ten years later, snooping around my parents' small collection of square dance records  (The record is long gone, but I still have one of my father's bolo ties).   I realize that Tommy Jackson is not much in favor among old-timey traditionalists today, but to a teenager just starting out on banjo, his energetic, pulsing style of country fiddling was an epiphany.  Jackson  would go on to become a successful Nashville session player, working with many of the legends of country music, including Hank Williams Sr., Hank Garland, Kitty Wells, Porter Wagoner, Ray Price, and Webb Pierce.  He died in 1979, at the age of 53.

Tommy Jackson's Sally Goodin, 1950

Sheep and a goat was walkin’ in the pasture,

The sheep said to goat, “Can’t you get a little faster?”

The sheep fell down and the goat rolled over,

Sheep got up with a mouth full of clover.

Like my pie, like my puddin’,

Love that gal that they call Sally Goodin’

By 1956, bluegrass music and bluegrass banjo had begun to make a good sized impression in American country music.  Mike Seeger, then just 23 years old and living in Baltimore, would make a collecting trip that year to the North Carolina Piedmont to record and preserve some of the three finger pickers who had preceded or were comtemporaries of Earl Scruggs, and who reflected the earlier tradition of three-finger picking that had inspired him.  The result was a Folkways LP called American Banjo Tunes and Songs in Scruggs Style.  Sally Goodin shows up on this record twice, once by Earl's older brother Junie Scruggs, and the other a cut by the great DeWitt "Snuffy" Jenkins.  Listening to these recordings, you come quickly to realize that Earl Scruggs did not make up his style of picking out of whole cloth; the close similarity between his version of Sally Goodin and Jenkins' version is more than remarkable.  I suspect that when you listen to Junie and Snuffy, you are getting an inkling of what the original legendary North Carolina three-finger stylists, Smith Hammett and Rex Brooks, probably sounded like.  The original Folkways LP is still available from Smithsonian Folkways, renamed more aptly American Banjo, Three Finger and Scruggs Style.  I have included a tab of Snuffy's three-finger arrangement.

Junie Scruggs' Sally Goodin, 1956

Snuffy Jenkins' Sally Goodin, 1956

Tab of Jenkins' Sally Goodin, PDF format

A few other interesting fiddle versions of Sally Goodin before I wind down-  Bruce Green recorded Monroe County, Kentucky fiddler Isham Monday in November, 1959;  J.E. Mainer and his Mountaineers recorded it for an out of print Arhoolie LP in April, 1963;  Jeff Titon recorded Clyde Davenport of Wayne County, Kentucky in March, 1990; and Art Stamper included a great version for his County Records LP, Goodbye Girls, I'm Going to Boston, recorded in 2000.   

Isham Monday's Sally Goodin, 1959

J.E. Mainer's Sally Goodin, 1963

Clyde Davenport's Sally Goodin, 1990

Art Stamper's Sally Goodin, 2000

Over the years I've worked up at least a half dozen different versions of this tune.  My first attempt was a simple Keith-style melodic rendition.  Accurate, but no energy.  Then came a subtly "chromaticized" version, with a few Bobby Thompson inspired flatted thirds.  The version from my ragtime period was heavy with syncopation and staccato Reno type single string notes.  In my swing period, I had a version which inserted some of the notes from the standard Texas sock guitar progression- that was kind of interesting, although I could never play it fast enough.  Finally, I brought my Sally Goodin' back home to the feel of the old-time tune that, after forty some years, still drifts through my daydreams.  Many of the popular Appalachian fiddle tunes like Sally Goodin can be easily distilled into a simple melody - they can be hummed, in essence.  The extra melody notes are essentially embellishments, suggested as much by patterns of the bowstroke and the structure of the fiddle tuning, as by pure melodic invention.  Quite a few of these are among the so-called "play party songs," tunes which in the rural South of several generations ago would be sung by proper church-going young folks at social gatherings.  The songs supplanted the fiddle, which was shunned as the devil's instrument, and provided musical accompaniment to an activity which to an outsider looked a lot like dancing, but wasn't, because that, too, was sinful.  So I went back to the simple melody of Sally Goodin, and the basic right hand rolls I first learned when I started out picking banjo.  To paraphrase Lester McCumbers, I don't try to play it the way Snuffy and Earl did, I try to play it the way I play it.  You can hear my version in a three finger/clawhammer duet with my pal Ed Britt, in the attachments below.  If anyone is interested, I have a tab posted at my website.  The tab has guitar, fiddle, and bass tracks, as well as banjo, so you can also use the MIDI playback as a backing track in order to practice your own arrangement, shutting off the banjo track if it distracts you.  If you go through the TEF file, you can also adjust the tempo to suit you.

For those of you who would like to try the tune, Mike Iverson has a nice looking intermediate clawhammer tab posted on his website to get you going.  BHO member Janalov has a neat two finger, thumb lead version that is true to the flavor of the old time finger pickers.

Don Borchelt's Sally Goodin Tab

Mike Iverson's Sally Goodin Tab

Janolov's Sally Goodin Tab

As you can see, I have not included any versions from BHO members, except one.  I thought I would let you all have the fun of posting your own.  There are at least a half dozen in the archives that are clawhammer/old time.  They are all good 'uns.

I had a piece of pie, and I had a piece of pudding,

I gave it all away, to see Sally Goodin.

Swing Sally Goodin, Swing Grandma,

Everybody swing now, to please Grandpa.

Bill Monroe can keep his Jenny Lind, Sally Goodin is where the fiddle begins.

- Don Borchelt

Edited by - Don Borchelt on 01/17/2014 09:50:02

VIDEO: Sally Goodin (click to view)

Sally Goodin with Ed Britt

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/17/2014:  10:50:15

Had a banjo tab, and CD that I saved

I gave it all away just to listen to old Dave

Playin’ banjo music, I knew that day would come

That I’d have to learn a tune just like Dave Humm

Like my banjo, play it ‘til it melts

Love the way he plays, old Don Borchelt

If I had a choice, I’d never write a poem

And my Banjo Hangout friends won't need to weep and moan

mworden - Posted - 01/17/2014:  11:49:28

Don, perhaps a new high-water point for TOTW posts.  Just terrific.  I love the way you traced out the history of this tune.  

I considered doing Sally Goodin for last week's tune before I settled on Old Mose.  Going through the archives, I was surprised it hadn't been done before.  Now, I am very happy I didn't choose it because my effort wouldn't not have been anywhere near as thorough and well done.  Bravo.  --mike

EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 01/17/2014:  12:22:47

A wonderful TOTW write-up.  Obscure, little-known tunes can sometimes be difficult to cover, but “universal” tunes like Sally Goodin present their own challenges – there is so much history and information that it can be difficult to summarize and present it all clearly.  You did all that and more.  Thanks for all the research and work.

Edited by - EggerRidgeBoy on 01/17/2014 12:28:28

Paul Roberts - Posted - 01/17/2014:  20:28:57

Don always plays right to the spirit of a tune.

Don Borchelt - Posted - 01/18/2014:  06:02:28

Thanks, all, for the nice comments.  Wow, Lew, I really love that rapping thump you get on your Sally, you nail the spirit of the thing perfectly.  Great up the neck break, too.

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/18/2014:  06:39:58

Thank you, Don.

Great TOTW job on your part.

We all appreciate your hard work,

V/R,

Lew

banjo bill-e - Posted - 01/18/2014:  08:29:46

Great job, Don. I listened to all the links above and all put a smile on my face (the Bob Wills was fun and unexpected). But once again Dave Hum shows how to fill his music with pure joy. What a talent, what a loss, and so glad that we have a record of his music.

chuckv97 - Posted - 01/18/2014:  08:48:08

terrific stuff,very informative and entertaining! 

JanetB - Posted - 01/18/2014:  11:52:40

A++

Don, I look forward to reading and listening to the entire post, but first decided to record one.  I'd already heard Dave Hum's and you with Ed (on your CD "Banj'r Pickin'), and of course Earl Scrugg's superb rendition.  Listening to all the other Sally Goodins will brighten my weekend. 

VIDEO: Sally Goodin (click to view)

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/18/2014:  12:09:04

Janet,

Your banjo just prrrs like a cat.

Nice work.

Lew

chuckv97 - Posted - 01/18/2014:  12:12:19

Great ! You know it's a good rendition when the animals hang around , happy.

Cornflake - Posted - 01/19/2014:  10:27:28

I've never heard a fiddle played the way Eck Robertson plays. Holy cow.

casinojack - Posted - 01/19/2014:  17:22:14

Here is a good one .youtube.com/watch?v=ByYSkRGrMqw

Earl Scruggs and The Chieftains

JanetB - Posted - 01/19/2014:  19:27:55

Here's a buckdancer busking on the street, dancing to Dan Gellert's Sally Goodin with solo banjo and a bit of singing:  youtube.com/watch?v=OxaO4T3BPLc

jaydobro - Posted - 01/20/2014:  06:32:31

Great article, informative, interesting and entertaining. Thanks,  Jay

llrevis - Posted - 01/20/2014:  15:33:13

For tab dependent old men like me, I would love to see a tab of the versions by Brooklyn Banjo Boy or JanetB or both.

JanetB - Posted - 01/20/2014:  17:27:10

quote:

---

Originally posted by llrevis

For tab dependent old men like me, I would love to see a tab of the versions by Brooklyn Banjo Boy or JanetB or both.

---

Here's my TablEdit tab.  It doesn't indicate hammer-ons, pull-offs, or alternate string pull-offs, but hopefully it will be helpful.

Sally Goodin tab

llrevis - Posted - 01/20/2014:  18:03:07

Many thanks, Janet. Much appreciated.

Don Borchelt - Posted - 01/21/2014:  04:33:29

Very fine picking, Janet, nicely worked up and played. My sincere thanks to you and Lew for contributing such fine versions for the TOTW.

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/21/2014:  04:40:39

Thanks to you for your hard work laying out the history of the tune, and your kind words of encouragement.

Play hard,

Lew

stigandr5 - Posted - 01/22/2014:  17:08:49

Thanks for this tune. After listening to many versions, I chose to model mine more or less off of the playing of Marcus Martin. I'd like to get to a point where I can sing with this, but the tune will have to suffice for now. Enjoy!

Edited by - stigandr5 on 01/22/2014 17:09:58

Sally Goodin'

aeroweenie - Posted - 01/22/2014:  18:25:59

Great tune choice Don.  And very informative write up, I had no idea the tune went back to the civil war.   I've only really played the tune in a bluegrass setting, seems like Eck Robertson's version is the basis for most bluegrass fiddling.  And who could fault that, Robertson's playing is marvelous!  A really nice selection of links and BHO contributions have been presented so far, I really appreciate the variety and different approaches to the tune.  Here is my clawhammer version, recorded some time ago, and obviously based on how I play the tune bluegrass style.

Sally Goodin

rinemb - Posted - 01/23/2014:  05:30:18

Don,  A BIG ATTABOY, for your comprehensive post.  Brad

Don Borchelt - Posted - 01/23/2014:  05:34:01

Some fine picking, really nice.  Nathan, you sound like you just came down from your cabin in the mountains to pick a tune for us, great job!. Fine playing. I like Martin's fiddling, too. He was using "cross" tuning (GDgd), which allowed him to make very liberal use of drone notes throughout, which helps give him that deep sound. He's also tuned about a semi-tone below G, or three semi-tones below A, where most fiddlers pitch cross tuning.  Paul, that was foot-tapping great! I thought I heard a little of that melodic anticipation that comes with mastery of the bluegrass style, like at the beginning of the first B part. That's actually a common practice in old time fiddling, too, but not often imitated by clawhammer pickers, for some reason.  Sounds great!

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/23/2014:  06:14:42

Nathan, Some real fast moving fingers there.  Great depth to the tune.  Of course, I'm presuming your fingers were moving fast since I don't have a video... (insert obnoxious smiley face here). 

Paul, BG-derived or not, you got the tune down.  Thanks for sharing.

I'm learning just as much about banjoing as I am about some great fiddlers who were unknown to me before mentioned in this and other TOTW essays. 

So, thanks, TOTW'ers (is that the OT version of TWEETERS?)

V/R,

Lew

Nick Hornbuckle - Posted - 01/24/2014:  08:54:40

Hi Don,

 Great information about one of my favorite fiddle tunes. It's one of those tunes.....well, I guess they're all like this, that one can never quite get to the bottom of. I sat down a couple of years ago and came up with a tuning that I felt was conducive to a lot of the 'big' notes in Sally. Nick

VIDEO: Sally Goodin (click to view)

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/24/2014:  13:37:16

Very inventive.  Thanks for sharing.

Lew

Don Borchelt - Posted - 01/24/2014:  17:57:20

Wow, Nick, that was awesome!

ClayTech - Posted - 01/28/2014:  10:55:02

Okay, here it is. This is the first time I've ever posted my playing here on the forum. I'm a relative newbie to banjo. I've been playing for about 2 years, although for the last year I was unable to use the middle finger on my left hand due to an injury. I just started using it again about 2 weeks ago. I also lost 6 months with my index finger from the same accident. So it's been a long year of very limited playing!

I apologize for the poor recording quality, but all I have to record with is my phone. And you can hear my boys screaming in the background. Unfortunately my banjo isn't loud enough to drown them out!

This version was found at L.W. Konigsberg's Clawhammer Banjo Tabs as Black Sally Goodin.

Sally Goodin

Sally Goodin

Don Borchelt - Posted - 01/28/2014:  21:12:09

Very nicely played, Neil, and a very interesting version, too.  A great first audio post, hope to hear more of your music.

Kitt - Posted - 02/01/2014:  14:11:06

quote:

---

Originally posted by JanetB

Here's a buckdancer busking on the street, dancing to Dan Gellert's Sally Goodin with solo banjo and a bit of singing:  youtube.com/watch?v=OxaO4T3BPLc

---

That's Moonshine v    youtube.com/channel/UCJWH9gUf1...vfITAkIlw

She also plays banjo, and more recently she took up fiddle also. She has so many really fine videos of old-time banjo and fiddle playing and players. I messaged her that her videos should or could someday become a fantastic Volume and Record of the musicians of this era, and also the many venues and homes of where they/we played music. Speaking of Dan Gellert, she has a number of videos of him playing both banjo and fiddle.

Edited by - Kitt on 02/01/2014 14:12:55

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 02/01/2014:  14:41:16

Moonshine is also a very good fiddler.  Her fiddling is worth tracking down on Youtube and  listening to.