Martha Campbell
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
PDF Files:
--- choose file type ---
Standard Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
Tune Sheet
Mandolin Tablature - wide
Violin Tablature - wide
Banjo Tablature - wide
American
Play
MIDI
No audio
available
Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Martha Campbell" also known as "Marthie Campbell" is an old-time American breakdown<br> from eastern Kentucky and Indiana in D Major. It is sometimes played AB (Silberberg),<br> ABB (Brody), AABB (Krassen, Phillips) or AA'BB' (Phillips, Reiner & Anick). I show it<br> here as AABB.<br> It is known as a Kentucky tune, once regionally associated with the northeastern and central part<br> of the state, but now wide-spread. The tune has been reworked as a bluegrass and contest<br> standard and was popularized among Texas fiddlers by Orville Burns. <br> It was of the first tunes recorded by Kentucky fiddler Doc Roberts (1897–1978), in 1925.<br> Music historian Charles Wolfe (1983) believed the tune related to Roberts' "Brickyard Joe" and<br> stated the Kentucky fiddler probably learned the tune from African-American fiddler Owen Walker<br> of Madison County, Ky., a mentor, around 1915. Jeff Titon (2001) is also of the opinion that<br> "Martha Campbell" may have had an African-American provenance and the process of aural<br> transmittal of the tune from source fiddlers appears to be from black to white. He reports<br> that Ky. fiddler Darley Fulks spoke of hearing the melody for the first time in the 1920's<br> from "colored fiddlers" and notes that Fulk's version, unique to him, included a bass part<br> that Fulks maintained African-American fiddlers included in their renditions.<br> "Martha Campbell" was also recorded in the field by the Lomax's from the playing of white<br> Virginia fiddler Emmett Lundy in 1941, when he was 80 years old.<br> It was printed in Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983), Krassen's Masters of Old-Time Fiddling<br> (1983), Phillips's Fiddle Case Tunebook: Old Time Southern (1989), Phillips's Traditional<br> American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1 (1994), Reiner & Anick's Old Time Fiddling Across America (1989),<br> Silberberg's Fiddle Tunes I Learned at the Tractor Tavern (2002), Titon's Old Time Kentucky<br> Fiddle Tunes (2001). <br> It was recorded by John M. Salyer, Walter McNew, Doc Roberts, Art Stamper, Bill Christophersen,<br> Buddy Thomas, Blind Bill Day (a pseudonym for Jilson Setters, b. 1860), Ace Sewell. <br> I learned it at Midwest Banjo Camp.<br>
Click
here
for a full page view.