Mtngoat - Posted - 02/07/2015: 14:32:44
TOTW 02-07-2015 (OT) Red Lick
TOTW aficionados please accept my apologies for the late posting.
I’ve chosen Red Lick from Kentucky fiddler Lela Todd for this installment of TOTW. I learned the tune at a jam in Kentucky about 15 years ago just as it was making its way into the wider OT world via the field work of John Harrod, Mark Wilson, and Guthrie Meade.
The Fiddler’s Companion has only this to say about Red Lick:
RED LICK. Old-Time, Breakdown. D Major. A “crooked’ tune, having an extra beat at the end of both ‘A’ and ‘B’ parts. The tune was played by Kentucky fiddler Lella Todd, as well as by Billy Stamper, who also lived in the same area. Rounder Records, Billy Stamper – “Traditional Fiddle Music of Kentucky, vol. 2: Along the Kentucky River.”
Harrod adds in the liner notes to the Traditional Fiddle Music of Kentucky CD that “Red Lick is an old tune that was known by all the Estill County musicians of an earlier day” and he seems to have popularized the quote from Earl Thomas, Jr. that “Red Lick is Liberty played backwards.”
Red Lick is not included in Titon's book Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes.
Anna Roberts-Gevalt has assembled information and remembrances of Mrs. Todd and several other women musicians on this web page: In Her First Heaven
Anna recounts a nice story about Mrs. Todd in this video: At the Side Door
An internet search returned several hits for Red Lick:
LG Whittaker plays a nice two finger version here: Thumb Lead and Clawhammer
There’s a fiddle version posted over on the fiddle hangout: Lonnie Osborne Fiddle
The Jimalong Josies do a spirited string band version with dynamite banjo work here: First Center 2012
The Kentucky Clodhoppers play Red Lick at the Celebration of Traditional Music: Berea 2012
Travis Wells plays his version on the Rounder Kentucky Oldtime Banjo CD here: KY Old Time Banjo
A snippet from Billy Stamper and Earl Thomas Jr. is here: Along the Kentucky River
Here’s a dizzying motorcycle tour of the Red Lick valley. It’s said that Daniel Boone camped here during one of his first visits to Kentucky: Two Wheeling
I did not find any tabs for the tune but it’s easy enough in double D tuning. Viewers are encouraged to post observations, opinions, performances and tabs contributing to this thread.
Edited by - Mtngoat on 02/10/2015 16:05:13
JanetB - Posted - 02/07/2015: 22:37:42
Thanks for coming through, Mtngoat. You always give us good and interesting tunes to learn. I especially liked the Lella Todd story -- both the interview of a neighbor who knew her as a child and the video with the sliding silhouette show and Red Lick music based on that interview.
I also looked up more information about Daniel Boone, whose explorations included that region near the Red River called the Warriors' Path and a camp where Indians had once traded with one of Boone's companions, John Findley. (A book called Boone, A Biography by Robert Morgan is on my reading list.)
This version came by listening to Billy Stamper and Earl Thomas, Jr. who were from the same area of Kentucky as Lella Todd. They played it in C, but it seems to be mostly played in the key of D. The part about Liberty being played backwards is partially true if you reverse the notes in the first and third measures of the B part. The second and fourth measures share notes, too, in a slightly different order. The two tunes would make a nice medley.
