Mtngoat - Posted - 01/19/2024:  01:33:36

TOTW 01/19/2024 -  Cowhide Boots

I’ve chosen Cowhide Boots from Missouri fiddler Lyman Enloe (1906-1998) for this installment of TOTW. 

Enloe was born into a musical family in Cole County, Missouri, on the northern edge of the Ozarks and was named a 1995 NEA National Heritage Fellow.  A more complete and interesting biography can be found here:  arts.gov/honors/heritage/lyman-enloe

I was introduced to Cowhide Boots by a jam mate who picked it up from fiddler Rachel Eddy.  

The tune has a healthy internet presence and I’ve attached some samples in the links below.

Here’s a recording of Enloe playing the tune:   slippery-hill.com/content/cowhide-boots

Here’s a fiddle solo: youtube.com/watch?v=bojJqrQw06M

Here’s a twin fiddle version:  youtube.com/watch?v=mKhwAFv8yz0

And here’s another twin fiddle version:   youtube.com/watch?v=OMl00qdtQws

Here’s a fiddle/banjo duet:  youtube.com/watch?v=iktHO-_jKz4  

Here’s a jam version:  youtube.com/watch?v=s-0b6zFF9Uk

Here’s a solo clawhammer banjo version:  banjohangout.org/myhangout/med...ived=true

And here’s a two finger banjo version:  youtube.com/watch?v=82pK8WJQ3es

The Traditional Tune Archive says Cowhide Boots is an Old-Time, Breakdown in G.  A transcription of the tune in standard notation is here:  taterjoes.com/Warehouse/Fiddle...Boots.pdf

Here’s a two finger tab for the tune:  2ftlbanjer.files.wordpress.com...boots.pdf

Here is a clawhammer tab of the tune played in the key of G out of double D tuning:  hangoutstorage.com/banjohangou...12011.gif

It is amazing what one can learn while researching a TOTW.  I had thought that all cowboy boots are made from cowhide but it turns out many different leathers are used to satisfy the needs and whims of the wearer.  This website gives an overview:  riosofmercedes.com/the-rios-fi...-and-care

Readers are encouraged to post observations, opinions, performances, and tabs contributing to this thread.

JanetB - Posted - 01/19/2024:  16:01:18

Nice coverage of the tune, Mtngoat, and thanks for pulling through at the last minute.  I enjoyed the fiddle/banjo duet with Megan Lynch and Adam Hurt.  They played at a house concert together in California, which is where I met him after Skyping for so many lessons.  I have the CD "Inside Out" with Cowhide Boots and will appreciate it even more. 

In your link about Lyman Enloe he hadn't passed away yet in 1995.  He died two years later.  One of the anecdotes in the book Ozark Fiddle Music by Drew Beisswenger and Gordon McCann is that when he picked up the fiddle "his wife jokingly asked him to play outside so no one would think she was screaming." A few years later he began winning fiddle contests and would take home five or ten dollars, and there were no trophies at that time.  The article also states that earning money from fiddle playing helped his family through the Depression.  (That part of the story is true for my grandmother's large family of ten siblings.  Her brother played piano and earned most of the money for them at that time.  That became his lifelong career.)

When I played along with the Slippery Hill source recording I wasn't hitting the notes the way I'd hoped, so went to the cello banjo and tuned it to the recording.  It came out to an open G tuning like this: dGDGB, except for having to tweak the original Lyman recording down a half-step to get it to play in the key of G. 

BTW, now I know my old boots are rough out cowhide, which is like suede.  It's rather unbelievable how long they've lasted and are still used daily when used to weed whack to keep out the flying grass and any striking rattle snakes, which thankfully haven't come out and scared me. 

Cowhide Boots

Cowhide Boots (CH) tab