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Sally Goodin

The Culbreath family hasn't quite come down from the clouds after last Saturday's fiddle competition in Weaverville, California. Speaking for myself, I'm the proud father of three shy and surprised fiddle champions and the event's first-place accompanist. (Well, Amanda wasn't too surprised, being the oldest of the pee-wees.) But I'm even more delighted, as a non-musician, to have a free ticket to the inside world of traditional American fiddling here in the rural northern counties of the Golden State. From the MC's corny jokes to the gospel music interludes, the culture of these events provides a rare public venue for good clean family fun. The kids have a great time. There are impromptu jamming sessions everywhere. The folks who participate are salt-of-the-earth types from small towns throughout the region. Homeschoolers, too, are well represented.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the day was a mini-concert by Timber Ridge, with Martha Boyle playing a thrilling version of Sally Goodin. Jim French, the lead guitarist, is an unassuming man whose personal contributions to traditional music in this region have been enormous and indispensible. Martha herself is an amazing gal from a musical family with two sisters who also sing and fiddle. She runs a music studio in Cottonwood called Keys and Strings with connections to some prominent musicians (April Verch will be visiting in November). I'll bet you've never heard Sally Goodin played like this before.

Had a piece of pie an' I had a piece of puddin',
An' I gave it all away just to see my Sally Goodin.
Had a piece of pie an' I had a piece of puddin',
An' I gave it all away just to see my Sally Goodin.

Well, I looked down the road an' I see my Sally comin',
An' I thought to my soul that I'd kill myself a-runnin'.
Well, I looked down the road an' I see my Sally comin',
An' I thought to my soul that I'd kill myself a-runnin'.

Love a 'tater pie an' I love an apple puddin',
An' I love a little gal that they call Sally Goodin.
Love a 'tater pie an' I love an apple puddin',
An' I love a little gal that they call Sally Goodin.

An' I dropped the 'tater pie an' I left the apple puddin',
But I went across the mountain to see my Sally Goodin.
An' I dropped the 'tater pie an' I left the apple puddin',
But I went across the mountain to see my Sally Goodin.

Sally is my dooxy an' Sally is my daisy,
When Sally says she hates me I think I'm goin' crazy.
Sally is my dooxy an' Sally is my daisy,
When Sally says she hates me I think I'm goin' crazy.

Little dog'll bark an' the big dog'll bite you,
Little gal'll court you an' big gal'll fight you.
Little dog'll bark an' the big dog'll bite you,
Little gal'll court you an' big gal'll fight you.

Rainin' an' a-pourin' an' the creek's runnin' muddy,
An' I'm so drunk, Lord, I can't stand studdy,
Rainin' an' a-pourin' an' the creek's runnin' muddy,
An' I'm so drunk, Lord, I can't stand studdy,

I'm goin' up the mountain an' marry little Sally,
Raise corn on the hillside an' the devil in the valley.
I'm goin' up the mountain an' marry little Sally,
Raise corn on the hillside an' the devil in the valley.

Comments (11)

Thanks, Jeff, both for the music and for the window into one of those ever-rarer worlds in which "things are themselves."

Congrats to the Culbreath champions!

Congratulations; I went to the web site and there's a whole world there. I assume you'll be in Red Bluff next month.

Now that's great news. The young Culbreath fiddlers are fine musicians, as I can certainly attest to from my family's opportunity to enjoy their playing this summer. And we got to hear them for FREE! Good deal, that. Jeff, my wife sends her compliments and says to pass along to the fiddlers a "congratulations" from her.

I have been wondering something for a while, maybe this is a good place to ask a question: Does the modern wonder of recorded music, and the resulting effect of allowing virtually EVERYONE to hear the greatest musicians play, any time you want to put them on, damage our ability as a society to properly appreciate "home-made" music? There are thousands and thousands of young people who learn to play an instrument well enough to get by, well enough to play in a school marching band, for example. A smaller set, but still quite significant, play well enough to win local music contests, like Jeff's kids. Yet some 99% of these will stop using this developed talent after age 25, because they don't go on to play professionally, certainly not at the concert level. But if we didn't have recorded music, the only way we would get to hear music would be if these locally trained musicians played at all the little things that ought to call for music: a birthday party, a parish picnic...a fine evening at twilight when the work is done.

Have we short-circuited our appreciation for the modest but sincere gift of making music for people at little occasions? Is this something to regret, or is it mere sentimentality?

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't want to give up recorded music.

More to the point, I think we'd need a lot more changed than just the absence of recorded music to go back to the days from Jane Austen through the Edwardian period when young women who could play and sing "took their music" to any social gathering and were expected to entertain the company. For one thing, we would need "the company" to have a desire to sit around in a group quietly at a party and listen to music. Background music isn't like that. You can circulate and talk while it's going on. There would also need to be more of a communal desire to _make_ music--e.g., to get together around a piano and sing. Here I feel that I'm fortunate in that I do have friends and family who enjoy doing this.

Background music isn't like that. You can circulate and talk while it's going on.

Quite true. Back in the Jane Austen days, of course, such musician groups were hired by nobles to play at their functions. The lower classes didn't have such music, did they?

There would also need to be more of a communal desire to _make_ music--e.g., to get together around a piano and sing.

I guess (and it's just a guess at this point), that we would want to if there were no such thing as recorded music. That's part of my point: one of the reasons we don't get together more is because we can get our amusements alone, including fine music. (TV is even more of a culprit, but of course it too involves recorded performance.) I imagine that if music and plays ALWAYS involved live performance, then we would do a LOT more getting together with others than we do now to listen. Not only because we would turn to each other out of boredom, but also because the good amateurs among us would not be self-conscious about competing against the world-class performances on the CDs on your shelf.

Lydia, I'm glad you enjoyed the music. As for the setting, I like how you put it: where "things are themselves". That sums it up nicely!

Al, thank you. We'll definitely be in Red Bluff again this October. In fact the kids are there at this very moment serving tri-tip sandwiches in order to raise funds for the Western Open. Come on up, if you can, for a weekend of great music. And if you can't make it to Red Bluff, try the Cloverdale contest in January. We're hoping to be there as well.

Tony, I'll say this: putting the Culbreath fiddlers together with your own family's sublime voices, as we heard on the night of your visit, was worth more than we could have paid for anyway! Please thank your lovely wife and pass on our greetings. As for your thoughts on recorded music, I don't think there can be any doubt: ordinary people have lost an important incentive to make their own music, along with the ability to appreciate the kind of live, spontaneous music that ought to be normal for a healthy society.

I will pass on everyone's kind congratulations.

That's great, Jeff. Music is a great gift to have both as an ability to make it, and two, to have a soul that can listen and enjoy it.

Hi Jeff.

I haven't been here in awhile, but when I saw the title "Sally Goodin," I knew this post had to be yours.

You are where we were in life 10 years ago and boy do I miss it. I thought it was one of the healthiest cultural activities to which one could introduce children. Fiddling and jamming with an age-integrated group of people was consistent with the kind of discipleship they should experience in church. Having the "elders" in the tradition lead and teach the younger ones teaches more that just music to the students.

I could go on, but I really just wanted to congratulate all of the Culbreaths!

In answer to Tony's question : does the ease of recorded music stifle the desire to play live music, the answer is yes and no. I have known people who have gotten a degree in music who could not find a job and have gone into something else. They may still play, but it usually at church jobs and the like. Musicians like to hear themselves and value their recordings, but the relationship of musicians to recording is very complicated and I don't have time, tonight to go into it. Let me just answer your question this way: I have a doctorate in performance and could easily be a professor of music at a four-year college. I have decided to teach science, instead, because I also have a background in the hard sciences. I still want to play, but it is almost impossible to find a place to do it. The community bands near me play music that I can sight read at the concert. In order to play professionally, I have to join the union and the dues are expensive and jobs are scarce. In desperation, a number of very talented musicians have formed their oen wind ensemble, but the number of talented musicians far exceed the number of openings. The problem, primarily, is that thi si not the 1910's when community bands were flourishing. It is not that musicians don't want to play. It's that few people will show up to hear them. The aesthetic dumbing-down due to rock music, which is not really an authentic folk music, has made people insenstive to musical structure and good taste. Real concert music is hard to process. The number of people going to legit concerts is falling and many medium-size orchestras are failing. Recording are very good for archival purposes, but, outside of tribal customs (and rock music is a sort of tribal music), where a recording is a good as a live performance, music has become largely a sensory experience for the public at large and not a means of communication. It would take too long to go into the history of how this came about, but money and greed is at the root of it. In other words, if there were no large recording companies pushing the latest trends, things would go back to a taste for real-life music. It is complicated to go into, as I say, but people, today, do not have the investment in music they once did because music has become commoditized. I will try to craft a more intelligible answer, but right now, my operating system is sick and I am typing this on a primative browser without wordwrap and no copy-paste ability, so it is hard to see what I am writing. Perhaps I can use a better computer, tomorrow.

The Chicken

Sorry for the poor typing. Without wordwrap, etc. my typing comes out in one long sentence. It is hard to proof-read.

The Chicken

You are where we were in life 10 years ago and boy do I miss it.

But surely you have children/grandchildren who are keeping the music alive?

Happily, it looks like we could be doing this for another 18 years.

I thought it was one of the healthiest cultural activities to which one could introduce children.

I concur wholeheartedly.

I could go on, but I really just wanted to congratulate all of the Culbreaths!

Thanks, Gina! Good to see you commenting again.

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