Elk River Blues
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legacy / air
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Ernie Carpenter
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Elk River Blues" is an old time air or listening piece from West Virginia in G Major.<br> The parts are played AA'.<br> It was composed by Braxton County, West Virginia, old-time fiddler Ernie Carpenter<br> (1909-1997). According to the booklet accompanying Carpenter's LP, the story behind<br> the tune is one of a difficult change in his life. He had worked most of his life for<br> the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Clarksburg, prior to<br> retiring in 1972. He had planned to retire to his homeplace on the Elk River but the<br> construction of the Sutton Dam by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the<br> Elk River during the 1950's and 1960's resulted in the flooding of his<br> boyhood home and the surrounding area, despite the efforts of himself and neighbors to<br> forestall the project through a lobbyist. He stayed in his Elk River<br> homestead while the dam was being constructed, even though most of his neighbors had<br> already left. Workmen blocked the roads in and out of the area, but Carpenter found<br> alternate routes until they too were closed off. "I was the last person out of there",<br> he said, "I went ahead then and tore the old place down and brought it up here. Part<br> of it's in this house." Of the tune, he remarked: "I was sittin' here one day, an' I had<br> the blues. I reckon as bad as anybody could, thinkin' about my old homeplace up on the<br> Elk River. I started sawin' on the fiddle an' that's what I came up with".<br> The tune is unusual in that the time alternates between 2/4 and 3/4 time.<br> Some transcriptions have it in 4/4 and 5/4 or even in a combined 9/4.<br> It was printed in Milliner & Koken's Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes<br> (2011). They print it in 4/4 and 5/4. The version given here (in 2/4 and 3/4) is popular<br> (and less scary than 4/4 and 5/4). It is the version used at our local jam.<br> It was recorded by Ernie Carpenter on Elk River Blues (1994),<br> Reed Island Rounders on Goin' Home (2002) and<br> Pine Tree Stringband on Country Mountain Favorites (2003).<br>
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