PorterBranch - Posted - 03/29/2024: 04:53:42
This weeks TOTW is Old Abbot from Paisley Hagood. Another Alabama tune and fiddler that it can be hard to find information on.
You can find Paisley Hagood’s version on Slippery Hill.
Here is its page on the Tune Archive.
In addition to Old Abbot, Hagood is the source for "Bull of the Woods" (which you can find a great recording of James Bryan and Carl Jones playing), as well as a really cool local version of Cumberland Gap in G.
Joyce Cauthen (author of With Fiddle and Well-Rosined Bow, a book on OT fiddling in Alabama) told me this tune predates the Civil War. After it came up in a jam some time ago, she mentioned that there exists a recording in which, before the tune, somebody asks Hagood where it comes from. He claimed it was an old banjo tune that had been popular among slaves in the South, which he then picked up from a Civil War veteran in his youth.
Here’s a good article on the man (written by his grandson, Jim Holland), in which that account seems to be corroborated. It also mentions that the tune bears resemblance to the tunes "Callahan" and "McClannahan's March." Personally, I hear a lot of similarity in an Irish tune from Boys of the Lough listed as "Cape Breton Wedding Reel No. 2" on their album To Welcome Paddy Home (the second tune in this set) — but smarter people than I disagree with that assessment, particularly in regards to the B-part of the tune.
As for other recordings of Old Abbot, I wasn't able to find a lot. Here's a good version I found on YouTube from Luke Richardson, but it's literally the only other recording I was able to find.
We played this tune at the local jam just last night — I should have recorded that so you could hear Jim Cauthen's terrific fiddling on it. Instead, you'll have to settle for me playing alone some hours before. Please accept my deepest apologies for this terrible, terrible oversight.
Its a pretty simple little tune, but there's an alternate string pull off toward the beginning of the B part that took me forever to figure out back when in was learning it. I never got around to writing a tab for this one, but I'd be happy to do so if anyone wants one. Also note that, despite Luke Richardson's straightened out version I linked to earlier in this post, the B part is supposed to be played three times before returning to the A.
I look forward to hearing new versions of this obscure local tune! If you have any questions feel free to ask, and if you'd like to see a tab just let me know in the comments.
Thanks!
Mtngoat - Posted - 03/29/2024: 12:11:48
Nicely played. I hear a resemblance to some versions of the Last of Callahan, a tune I always believed had an eastern Kentucky origin. Your research has given me cause for thought and new avenues of exploration concerning its provenance.
Edited by - Mtngoat on 03/29/2024 12:12:38
RG - Posted - 03/29/2024: 12:48:08
Real nice tune Porter, thanks for posting. Gonna have to learn this on the fiddle as well.
JanetB - Posted - 03/29/2024: 16:56:52
Nice TOTW contribution, Porter, and nice video of you playing. Offering an Alabama tune is kind of a rarity here, and to think that James Bryan plays one of Paisley Hagood's tunes says a lot. In the Slippery Hill recording you mostly hear Hagood playing ABAB. That was actually a nice treat to play like that. I included his variation in the A part.
