"Feather Bed", also known as "Featherbed" is an American reel in A Mixolydian ('A' part) & A Major ('B' part). It is played in ADae or AEae fiddle tuning. The parts are played AAB (Titon) or AABB (Milliner & Koken).
It is in the repertoire of John Salyer (1882-1952), Magoffin County, Ky.whose sons, Grover and Glen, made a home recording of him in the early 1940's.
The black banjo player, Gus Cannon, who worked medicine shows between 1914 and 1929, learned a tune called "Feather Bed" in "strumming style" from"Old Man Saul" Russell.
Jeff Titon (2001) remarks that, as far as he knows, Salyer is the sole source for the Kentucky fiddle tune.
The banjo tablature is by John Letscher. His comments:
From the playing of Claire and Walt. It took a while to convince myself that this tune isn't crooked.
It was printed in Milliner & Koken's Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011) and Titon's Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001).
It was recorded by Alice Gerard, Gail Gillespie & Sharon Sandomirsky on The Road to Agate Hill (2006), John M. Salyer on Home Recordings 1941-42, vol. 2 (1993) and Rafe Stefanini on Hell and Scissors (1999).