Billy in the Lowground – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 193

I have been hearing Billy in the Lowground for a long time, but I really didn’t play it for a long time.

I first started working out an arrangement Billy in the Lowground when I taught it to one of my fiddle students, Andy Houck. He was working through the Tony and JayDean Ludiker breakdowns book, and I learned that arrangement as I was teaching it to Andy.

I also took some licks from a transcription of Benny Thommasson playing Billy in the Lowground that Tony Ludiker had transcribed. And of course a fiddle tune isn’t complete unless you add a bit of yourself into the tune.

Billy in the Low Ground according to Fiddler’s Companion

BILLY/BILLIE IN THE LOW GROUND [1]. AKA and see “Beaus of Albany [1],” “Billy in the Low Land [1],”  “Braes of Auchtertyre [1],” “Fiddler’s Drunk and the Fun’s All Over,” “Jinny in the Lowland,” “Kerry Fulton’s Schottishe,” “The Kerryman’s Daughter [1].”   Old‑Time, Bluegrass; Breakdown. USA, known under this title throughout the American South, Midwest, and Southwest. C Major (most versions): D Major (Bayard‑Marr). Standard tuning. AB (Beissenger & McCann): AABB (most versions). Miles Krassen (1973) identifies an Irish version called “The Kerryman’s Daughter” which may be cognate or ancestral, while R.P. Christeson suggests it can be traced to the Scottish “Braes of Auchentyre” in (Cole’s 1000) {as John Hartford has supported} and “Beaus of Albany” in Howe. It has also been pointed out the the ‘B’ part of “Billy” is quite similar to the ‘B’ part of the Irish tune “The Sailor’s Bonnet.” Samuel Bayard (1981) agrees with Stenhouse‑Johnson in concluding that the tune originated in Britain as a slow 3/4 time song tune from c. 1710 or earlier, called “O Dear Mother (Minnie) What Shall I Do?” He sees the development of the tune as having then split into two branches, and that during the 1740’s a 6/8 “giga” or jig form was composed called variously “All the Blue Bonnets Are Over the Border,” “Blue Bonnets Over the Border [1],” “Over the Border [1],” or “Blue Bonnets [2].” Later in the century the second branch was fashioned from the original 3/4 tune into a fast duple time (4/4) dancing air which went by several titles including “The Braes of Auchtertyre/Auchentyre” (the oldest and most common title), “The Belles of Tipperary [1],” and “The Beaus of Albany [1].” These latter tunes are the immediate ancestor of the “Billy in the Lowground” group of tunes in America. See also related tunes “Apple Blossum,” “Cranberry Rock,” “Rymer’s Favorite,” “Dunbar,” “Gilda Roy,” Rocky Pallet,” “Washroom Reel,” “Indian Eat the Woodpcker,” and the related part ‘A’ of “Shelvin Rock” (as played by Melvin Wine, for example).

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Early American printings of the piece can be found from the early 19th century onwards. The melody appears under the “Billy/Low Grounds” title in George P. Knauff ‘s Virginia Reels,” volume III (Baltimore, 1839)—see also note for “Billy in the Lowlands” [5]. Folklorist and fiddler Alan Jabbour finds that, in some sources, the title changed around 1800 to “Johnny in the Nether Mains.”

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The melody is widely disseminated through the United States, with the exception of the Northeast and north Mid-West. Bayard (1944) writes that when he collected the melody it was “current as a marching tune in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and is known to its ‘Billy’ form of the title farther south (as the tune resembles another Pa. tune called  ‘Jinny in the Lowlands’). The resemblances between this tune and ‘Jinny in the Lowlands’ may be fortuitous; but they have at any rate attracted enough notice from the players to cause confusion of the titles…” Tom Carter and Blanton Owen (1976) maintain the tune and  title are characteristic of the Franklin, Floyd and Patrick County area of southwestern Virginia, and represent an older fiddle repertoire which predates the later development of stringband or fiddle/clawhammer banjo tunes. “Billy in the Lowground” was played by Arizona fiddler Kenner C. Kartchner for dances in the Southwest at the beginning of the twentieth century (the piece was identified by him as having come to that region from the American South, and assessed it as “a good one”). It was recorded from the playing of an Ozark fiddler for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph who collected in the early 1940’s, and, likewise, by Herbert Halpert (also for the Library of Congress) in 1939 from Tishomingo County, Mississippi, fiddler John Hatcher. Texas fiddler Eck Robertson recorded it commercially for Victor records in 1923 in a medley with “Sallie Johnson” (the disc was backed with “Done Gone [1]”). Cauthen (1990) collected evidence from period newspapers and other accounts in Alabama and records that it was one of the tunes commonly played throughout every region of that state in the first part of the 20th century. The Marion Standard of April 30th, 1909, reported it was one of the tunes (along with “Miss McLeod”) played at a housewarming in Perry County, Ala., in 1827. Elsewhere in the deep South, a Georgia fiddler named Ben Smith, serving with the 12th Alabama Infantry in the Civil War, played the tune in that conflict according to a memoir of the unit. According to Bell Irvin Wiley, writing in his book The Life of Johnny Reb (1943), “Billy in the Lowground” was a favorite tune of Confederate fiddlers.

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It is also known to have been associated with Kentucky fiddlers (Wolfe, 1982). The famous Kentucky musician Dick Burnett related this improbable story about the origin of the tune and title:

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You know how come them to make that? There was a man a goin’

through an old field one time and he had his fiddle with him and

he walked out on the bank of a sink hole and it broke off and he

fell down in that hole and couldn’t get out. He just sat down there

and took his fiddle and played that tune. His name was Billy

something but I forgot his full name.   (Charles Wolfe)

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“Billy in the Lowground” was a popular fiddle tune among Kentucky musicians. African-American fiddler Cuje Bertram claimed to have taught it to Leonard Rutherford (Monticello, Ky.), and in Jeff Titon’s (2001) opinion the two versions are in fact quite similar, although Bertram’s is more intricate. Kentucky fiddler John Salyer’s version (see Titon, Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes, 2001) was an uncommon rendition and shares similarities in the high part with another Kentucky fiddler, Doc Roberts, notes Titon. “Billy Lost in the Lowlands” is what fiddler Darley Fulks called the tune, the substitute word “Lowlands” in the title also being found by Bayard employed by some Pennsylvania fiddlers. Both the “Billy in the Lowground” and “Billy in the Lowlands” titles appear in the Berea, Ky., 1919-1928 contest tunes list, finds Titon.

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The tune was in the repertories of Uncle Jimmy Thompson 1848‑1931 (Texas, Tenn.), Fiddlin’ Cowan Powers 1877‑1952? (Russell County, southwest Virginia) [and recorded by him in 1924 for Victor, though the side was unissued], Bob Wills (Texas), black Kentucky fiddler Cuje Bertram, and Alabama fiddlers Monkey Brown (1897‑1972) and D. Dix Hollis. North Georgia fiddler Lowe Stokes recorded “Billy” in 1930 with guitarist Riley Puckett; his rendition features an extra beat (as does Ozark fiddler Seth Mize’s version—see Beisswenger & McCann). Other early recordings include Georgia’s Fiddlin’ John Carson (1923) and the Kessinger Brothers (1929).