Transcriber’s Notes:Words or phrases in found brackets represent unclear or
unintelligible portions of the recording. Brackets are also used to provide the reader with helpful background information about the recording. Underlined text within the transcription represents more than one person speaking at the same time.[background conversation]
[
1:00--- 1:46 Plays “Fiddler’s Dream]ADFraley:I don’t remember ever playing that.
Fraley:Getting old and senile.
ADFraley:Well, that’s probably true.
Fraley:She don’t say she ever remember playing that [laughs]. I told you about
going to my family doctor, didn’t I?Interviewer:Huh-uh.
Fraley:He said, said, “J.P what’s your trouble? I said Lord, “Doc,” said, “I
can’t remember from one second to the next [laughs], and my memory just left me.” He said, “Well, I can fix that.” I said, “Fix what?” [all laughs].Interviewer:Well, what was the last tune?
ADFraley and Fraley:“Fiddler’s Dream.”
Interviewer:Who? What? [All laughing and joking].
ADFraley: I forgot more than you’ll ever know [laughs].
Fraley:Well, that’s me now. I forgot more than you’ll ever know [laughs]
ADFraley:[singing in the background: “I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know about…]
Interviewer:Are you going to sing?
[Fraley plays practice notes, talking in the background]
Interviewer:Do you play a quadrille, just out of curiosity?
Fraley:That was it, “Soldier’s Joy.”
Interviewer:“Soldier’s Joy” is the quadrille?
Fraley:That’s what it really is.
ADFraley:What about that little shadish you used to play?
Fraley:Oh. [laughs]. The German, let’s see.
ADFraley:We haven’t played that for years.
Fraley:Yeah, don’t think I can play it.
[Fraley plays practice notes]
Interviewer:My daddy played that tune.
[3:55--- 5:04 Plays tune]
Interviewer:I think this is so exciting. My daddy played that tune.
ADFraley:Really?
Interviewer:See, his father played in Oklahoma. His father played, traded a
shotgun and a hog for his fiddle. My uncle had the fiddle in [Wasnatchie] Washington. You were right next to that. [Wanatchie’s] right in the center of Washington. And see then he went for forty years without a fiddle, and his father in law gave him his fiddle, my mother’s father got to where he couldn’t play, and he gave my daddy, his son in law, his fiddle. So my daddy has my mother’s daddy’s fiddle. But he reconstructed that tune out of memory from, you know, he got control of that fiddle probably in the mid fifties. And daddy was born in nineteen three. And his daddy did a lot of playing in central Oklahoma there in nineteen fifteen. And then they went to California in nineteen twenty-six after they tried to homestead in Colorado. This is my daddy’s family. And he couldn’t reconstruct the B part, the fine part of that. I was going to copy that off and send him. You wouldn’t play it again would you, just to make sure we got it all?Fraley:Well, yeah, I’ll play it again.
Interviewer:What do you call it?
Fraley:It’s just a German Shaddish. I don’t know; I don’t know.
ADFraley:I don’t think we ever had a name for it.
Interviewer:[Whispers, unintelligible]
Fraley:Well, you know, the Shaddish it was like polka rhythm you know, it a---
Interviewer:Yeah.
Fraley:I mean in it’s style of polka and shaddish is different.
Interviewer:Oh it’s going to be so much fun when he gets hold of that one
because we don’t have a good fine part. He worked out [unintelligible, Fraley playing fiddle as she talks]. He said some days he could work with it better than others. Now that’s going to be interesting.[6:58---7:58 Plays song again]
ADFraley:You never did play that second part, did you?
Fraley:Yes I did; yes I did. I started out with it.
ADFraley:Oh.
Fraley:You lost your memory. You are getting forgetful.
[All joke and laugh]
Fraley:You heard the old feller he’s raising a family of twenty-one kids, and he
said, “How come there’s so many kids in your family?” Said, “[mamma’s] hard of hearing,” and said, “Sometimes daddy’d wake up long before work time and he said, “Well, do you want to get or what?” and she’d say, “What?” [all laugh].ADFraley:It’s in G. “Little Girl in Red” or something, what was that?
Fraley:Oh, that’s a cowboy tune; I don’t know if I can play it.
[8:55----9:45 plays tune].
ADFraley:That’s the only words I ever did know to that. I thought it was cute.
Fraley:No that was, that was kindly early cowboy swing. I mean [begins playing
fiddle, others talk in background].[
2:00----begins playing song again; ends at 3:00 ]ADFraley:I believe that came later or earlier [all laugh and talk in background]
I always liked that little, not a, it’s a little, not a little old girl, it’s a kind of a girl.Fraley:Pretty little girl.
ADFraley:[singing] Pretty little girl with the little red curls down at the
roadside in.Fraley:Well, see that had to be fairly modern. I never heard of the roadside in
until the forties, did you? Speaking in background as Fraley plays practice notes]. I will think of every kind of a fiddle tune in the world when we get through. Let’s see. You know the fiddler Bob Wills. And in the heyday of the cowboy music, he did a lot of his own stuff. And that was the time that all the fiddlers started copying Bob Wills. You know, to give you an idea, to copy a fiddler is kindly easy, but it’s still Bob Wills. For instance just a, plays beginning of song. That’s a Bob Wills attack on the tune and here’s my own, the same tune. I’m partial, I like that double stopping, but sometimes it’s overdone, you know, trills, double stops and things of that order, a little bit here in there like putting seasoning in a bowl of soup. Now here’s my version of this same tune.[
4:00 --- 5:00Plays song]ADFraley:That’s one fiddlers all like to play.
Fraley:We all like to play it, but why play like Bob Wills when you can play the
way you feel it?ADFraley:If you are going to imitate you can’t imitate anybody better in my opinion.
Fraley:Well, it’s right. He was fabulous.
Interviewer:He really was.
ADFraley: I really like that western swing.
Fraley:Annadeene here’s something that might be interesting to show you. Do a
little bit of “I Saw Your Face in the Moon.” I mean to get the, kindly the rhythm and the singing and the fiddler in the back of the singer.ADFraley:Well, now you’ve been telling your versions. The way this song was
originally written---Fraley:I know.
ADFraley:Hugh Cross in Cincinnati, and he, it was his themes song.
[
6:00---ADFraley begins song] I really can’t get his tune, but it was slow like that. Cause we have upped it to where, because he likes to play it on the fiddle.Fraley:We didn’t do it all; they did it. Back at that time Hugh Crosby’s Radio
Pals, I mean they was a fabulous band. But that was his style. But they kept a doing his stuff, all of them, swinging and putting the [unintelligible] chopping it up and so forth. But here’s what happened. I kindly liked moving it too.[
7:00 --- 8:00Plays their version of the song]Fraley:But that was an idea, I mean, what kindly---
ADFraley:Real good when you’ve got a bass fiddle in there to fill in there.
Fraley:Particular time. I got amazed listening to [Bard] tell me the story about
Cheyenne. He called her, you know the Cheyenne Indian? But Bard he relates that and tells a pretty good story about it to a girl that she was shy, s-h-y. [all laughs]Interviewer:It’s on their album that way.
Fraley:I know it’s on there.
Interviewer:Capitola S-H-Y space [ADFraley and Interviewer speak in the background.]
Fraley:But that is kindly Indian music.
ADFraley:Yeah, its’ obvious that it’s an Indian.
Fraley:But you learn a lot.
Interviewer:Are you going to finish the story? I interrupted you [all laugh].
Fraley:Shy-ann. And he even put words to it. I mean you ought to here it, I mean
he sings. You remember, no, was you up at the tent when he come up there with hid fiddle and he said, “Let’s play Shy-Ann?” and I got to playing it, you know. So he just tucked his fiddle under his arm and started singing [laughs]. And ole Marvin liked to drop his [hands]. [All laugh]. There were words to it.Interviewer:How’d the words go?
Fraley:I don’t even remember? Just, I never heard---
ADFraley:Well, that’s how songs are----
Fraley:They were literally on tape. Marvin taped it. And I meant to ask that
Jackie, she was a picking and taping, you know she was running around like these people with these tape recorders, just holding it down, just running [laughing].ADFraley:You have any idea how many folk ballads or used as [Fraley begins
playing practice notes and ADFraley’s words become unintelligible] like for instance, “Round County Troubles,” it’s written about a feud in Morehead. It’s the “Pike County Breakdown,” the tune is.Interviewer:Is that right?[Interviewer and ADFraley talk as Fraley plays
practice notes]Fraley:Let’s do “Walking in My Sleep.” Now this is one, I have to slur that one
Arthur Smith tunes [laughs]. Arthur Smith was a good fiddler. Done his own thing, but I liked his “Walking in My Sleep.” But I won’t play it like Arthur Smith. I play it like me.G.
[
9:00 --- 10:00Plays “Walking in My Sleep.”]Fraley:You’re familiar with that tune, aren’t you? That was on the radio.
ADFraley:Goodness, I thought everybody played that tune.
Fraley:They do.
ADFraley:Asa Martin used that for a theme song.
Interviewer:I found a record of Asa Martin’s tunes they put together. They did
it down at Berea.ADFraley:Ginger Blue? No, another one. Ginger Blue Rounder did.
Interviewer:No, it was another one. Maybe they picked up different tunes that
what were available around.Fraley:I like to hear, did you ever meet a fiddler, Jim Gaskin? Now he fit the
bill. He was a good fiddler, but just plain and simple. But what always was doing was just perfect with it.ADFraley:Uh-huh. He was the one played [unintelligible]. Course they sung it. It
has words.Interviewer:Are you going to sing?ADFraley:No, I never sing that.
Interviewer:You don’t sing that one?
ADFraley:You might have noticed when there’s a fiddle player around there’s not
much singing going on.Fraley:You’re right. Now tell me something else. I am about run out of stuff here.
Interviewer:Well, we’ve got a whole alphabetized list that we haven’t even touched.
Fraley:I know; I know.
Interviewer:But I didn’t want to impose that list on you. Just because you said
you could play them doesn’t mean you want to play them now. [Laughs].Fraley:That’s the trouble. The mood a person was in.
ADFraley:Well, why you’re thinking let’s do that English ballad while I get
still get the chords for it. You like to play the fiddle on that. She said she wanted some songs too, so I can do that.Fraley:You mean the Elizabethan?
ADFraley:That I leaned from some English fellows that were here at our house one
night. And they were doing a contest [Fraley begins playing, ADFraley becomes inaudible]. Fran and I went up to hear them. They played lutes and classical guitars, you know. And they made a statement that they would like to visit an Appalachian home over there. So after there I said, “We live in Appalachia, and I have a home [laughs]. You can come down and visit us.” So they did; they came down. J.P. was down in Pound Virginia, and we called him and he called home.Fraley:I drove to three hours to get a way in the night I got in.
ADFraley:They stayed until about five or six in the morning. I baked cornbread
for them. They had never eaten cornbread.Interviewer:Can you imagine? Being a full grown person and having never had any
cornbread?ADFraley:Martin Best and [Evar] Flowers was her name. And Martin Best was with the Shakespearean theatre, and his address was Stratford on Avon [laughs].Fraley:You know I studied about, you know, when you mentioned cornbread to them.
I still wonder about that. Because I didn’t know until I went to Europe and you mentioned corn you’re not talking about corn as we know it.ADFraley:Talking about wheat, aren’t you?
Fraley:Yeah the, the, the barley, wheat, oats---that’s corn. Corn, which they’re
right, is maize.Interviewer:Like [broom] corn. We call that broom corn.
Fraley:Yeah, I know. But I mean the grain, the grain corn in Europe is maze.
Also in Italy, same thing.Interviewer:You mean the ear? They call that maze?
Fraley:Yeah. They don’t call it corn. Corn is the small grain. Wheat, barley, oats.
ADFraley:Well, I think, isn’t that what the Indians called it too, maze?
Fraley:Well, the Indians called it Maze. I think, now wait a minute, because I
don’t know whether the Indians knew the word maze and the white man called it or not.ADFraley:I’ll have to take a course in history.
Fraley:It’s kindly funny. They taught, the white people taught the Indian how to
speak, and they also taught the blacks how to speak and then they turn around and make fun of the ways the blacks talk [laughs].Interviewer:[laughing] Yeah.
Fraley:They talked exactly the way they talked in the south. That’s the only
language they could learn [laughs].ADFraley:Anyhow, they sang, he sang such a trained voice that I didn’t think
that it would be anything that I would want to learn, and I had to go to the hospital after that and we taped everything; just turned the tape the recorder on and let it go. And I liked this tune, and I learned it. [Both Fraley and ADFraley talking over each other]. He likes to play it on the fiddle, so.Fraley:I ought to learned this and go to the National Folk Festival I’d be like
Eddie Maynard. I’d of had every hippie there a following me trying to learn this tune.[
11:00 --- 12:00Plays ballad.]ADFraley:That’s a hard song to sing sitting down [laughs].
Fraley:I like that. You know, that’s a typical fiddle tune. That’s just a chord
and a half in that one. I don’t think they’s two chords. It’s a pretty rendition of an Elizabethan ballad. That one I can tolerate. Most of them I don’t like to do.Interviewer:That one, that apron motif. That’s that effective, isn’t it?
ADFraley:Yeah. You know a lot of people, see I didn’t realize about folk music
that there are things, you have to, it’s like the Hebrew language where you have to put in consonants or vowels. Vowels, you have to put in vowels. You have to put in the picture of what’s actually going on. I mean there is a lot of symbolism in folk music and I didn’t really know that like the apron strings hanging low and then high.Interviewer:Up to her chin.
ADFraley:Umm-hmm. So you have to read in-between the lines on a lot of them. The
one “On Banks of Red Roses,” it’s a about them going walking and then he digs their grave and kills her on bridal beds. In other words he raped her.Interviewer:Oooooooooh.
ADFraley:And then he killed her. I mean, it doesn’t say that he did, but you
know then on the way home ever he feels like everybody’s looking at him and knows that he has killed her.Interviewer:I have gone to sleep on some of those ballads and missed the point,
and then the next time you hear it and then you think, ooooooh.ADFraley:Yeah.
Interviewer:That’s why some people can [unintelligible] because it gets kind of
like decoding something. And it’s a little code there with the apron.ADFraley:And those with herbs in them and things in them, all those herbs have a
meaning. And I didn’t realize that either, and I don’t know what they mean, but there’s some meaning behind everything that’s in those songs.Fraley:Well, herbs was used from cooking to getting somebody [unintelligible] I
mean, you know. Of course I think that called rue, that must have been [tape turns off][Tape comes back on, no talking, a great deal of background white noise until
end of audio file.][
13:00End of recording.] 14:00