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Noah Cline - Posted - 08/30/2024: 08:41:26
Here’s a sweet little local waltz with a family connection that I learned last year, having come across it years ago and rediscovering it again, this time making sure I learned it by heart.
Edward Price Bane (1877-1956) was my grandmother’s great-uncle, and my third-great uncle. “Uncle Price,” as she always referred to him as, was very special to her. When my grandmother was born, she caught pneumonia and her parents had figured the worst for her, but Uncle Price nursed her back to health. She lived with him in his later years and cared for him, living in the house that she and three of her four brothers were born in on Dry Run Road in Burlington. The house still stands today. He was laid to rest in the Bane Family Cemetery on top of the hill that looms behind the house.
Uncle Price was a stone mason by trade along with his brother, William Heiskell, who was my grandmother’s grandfather on her mother’s side. He was an old bachelor, and grandma said that while he had a couple “prospects,” nothing ever came of it. My grandmother spoke of him having made a “bass fiddle,” and remembered him playing it. She didn’t say a lot about hearing and seeing him play a regular fiddle in general, being in his mid-50s when my Grandmother was born, but that he could play. It’s possible given the reference I list below that while he was apparently known locally for being a fiddle player in his younger years, he may have just laid it down later in life. Maybe his occupation was a cause given the nature of it being rough on one’s hands, arms, and upper body.
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Some years ago, I acquired a copy of Mountains of Music, a compilation of Goldenseal articles featuring many traditional musicians of West Virginia. As I read the article on the Welch Brothers, I discovered that there was a waltz floating around named after Uncle Price. After a bit of searching, I happened to rediscover a video (having seen it several years ago, but I guess not remembering what all was on it) having a short piece of a recording of this tune from the Grant County, WV Arts Council recording project undertaken in the late 70s by Bill Wellington featuring local musicians in and around the county, including Israel and Tom Welch. Tom was featured playing this tune on the project, having learned it from Thomas “Uncle Tom” Thrush, a local fiddler and neighbor of the Welch Brothers in Burlington, and Tom’s mentor. Link for Bill’s video (starts at 6:53): youtu.be/jt-X7oBFUKM
An excerpt from the Summer 1984 issue of Goldenseal containing this article (as featured in Mountains of Music), “Always Come Home After The Dance” by Bill Wellington, detailing the story of the Welch Brothers, with a reference to the tune’s origin/namesake:
‘“Uncle Tom would listen to him play and say, ‘You’re a gettin’ it, Tommy, you’re a gettin’ it!” Mary said. “When he was on his deathbed Tommy played him a tune, and Uncle Tom asked for the fiddle and, though he could barely move, he showed him where he’d made a mistake in it.” Uncle Tom Thrush died in 1927.
Tom Welch remembers the same touching moment, and even the tune. “That was the ‘Price Baine Waltz.’ That’s what he called it, anyway, after Price Baine, a fiddler who lived about a mile from us down on Dry Run.”’
(Wellington, Bill. “The Welch Brothers Band.” Mountains of Music. Edited by John Lilly, University of Illinois Press, 1999, pp. 209.)
When I found the tune again, I quickly learned it (just after figuring out that Tom’s recording was sounding in C#, but given the open and chorded strings of the fiddle and Bill’s accompanying guitar, that it was in D) and was able to play it for Grandma the week before she passed away back in the beginning of March (of 2023). She commented that she had never heard it before, but that it “sounded like the way a waltz should sound.”
That’s good enough for me.
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Addtionally, I found a recording of Israel last Fall playing the waltz (referring to it as the “German Waltz”) as collected by Gerry Milnes and accompanied by Joe Herrmann in Augusta Heritage’s archives (Israel begins talking at 17:05, starts playing at 17:15): augustaartsandculture.org/docu...0-2-1997/
In the liner notes of Israel’s “Tearin’ Down the Laurel Album” (produced by Milnes), it lists Uncle Price as being one of a number of local musicians that Israel and Tom learned from early on among others such as Uncle Tom Thrush, Elijah Blackburn, and Mausby Rogers. Uncle Price’s learning to play the fiddle most likely came from Tom Thrush, who I’m pretty sure was his mother’s uncle as she was a Thrush. I remember Grandma saying that Sarah could play a pump organ. In the Goldenseal Article, there was a brief mention that Tom was occasionally accompanied by his niece, Sally, on pump organ. It was said that Tom knew around 2,000 tunes and several classical pieces. I’m unsure who composed the waltz, but it might be fair to say it was most likely Tom.
I posted a video last March playing the waltz on banjo and accompanying myself with mandolin and guitar: youtu.be/PgCCzstfV8o?si=N3wwFui8ifpY4p2h
I’m also including an audio file of just banjo.
Photo notes from my above video:
Thumbnail: “Uncle Price Bane, age 21 years” (taken at The Star Photo Studio, Keyser, W.VA., c.1898-9)
Ending: L-R: James E. “Jim” Rogers, USMC (my great-uncle and grandma’s brother) and Uncle Price, mid 1950s.
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If you’ve made it this far, I truly appreciate you taking the time to read the above. Feel free to contribute recordings, comments, and feedback.
Edited by - Noah Cline on 08/30/2024 08:57:17
JanetB - Posted - 09/01/2024: 20:30:44
That's indeed a sweet little waltz, Noah. And also some great history behind it.
I ended up using Israel Welch's clear version, though I play through the A part just once each time through. The middle of the A part has the most interesting transition before it repeats -- simple, but unexpected.
There's actually a jukebox dedicated to Israel Welch on my site, so it's nice to add another tune. I noticed on Israel's CD another good one, a jig, called Music on the Ocean Wave. Do you know it? It sounds like something a sailor should be dancing to!
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