Mountain girl Georgia poses out on the back porch of her shack in the Ozarks. She is wearing cutoff shorts and a red flannel shirt.
Today’s youtube features the amazing bluegrass guitar of Doc Watson. The tune is Black Mountain Rag, which is was originally a fiddle tune.
Doc Watson is a legendary guitar virtuoso in the bluegrass, country and old-time style. He has influenced countless musicians.
Doc played Black Mountain rag in the key of D. He had capo on the second fret so played it like C. The rhythm guitar can play it without a capo D A D, D G D A. There is a change of key in the middle to A E A, A D A E. Then back to D. Tempo=110bpm.
Here’s a fiddle version played by a teenage girl named Ashley Hull. Very nice.
Here is some real old-time fiddle with Lester McCumbers. Lester is from West Virginia and uses the “pancake grip” to hold his fiddle.
Here is some historical notes from a book by C. Wolfe.
The piece became popular in the late 1930’s. It was claimed by fiddler Leslie Keith (who is featured on the very first recordings of the Stanley Brothers), who said he wrote it in the early 1940’s after taking “a little bit of” ‘The Lost Child’, and ” a little of two or three of the Carter Family’s tunes.” He named it “Black Mountain Blues” after the name of a mountain in Cumberland County, Tenn., however, “The Lost Child” is the basic melody for the tune. Curly Fox changed the name from “Black Mountain Blues” to “Black Mountain Rag” on his 1947 recording for King, which eventually sold over 600,000 copies (Charles Wolfe, The Devil’s Box, Dec. 1982, pgs. 3-12). (Information Thanks to the Fiddler’s Companion)
