Yellow Barber
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
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American
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Yellow Barber", also known as "Arthur Berry" American reel in D Major.<br> The parts are played AB (Silberberg, Titon) or AABB (Phillips).<br> Although the name Yellow Barber is given to a bird species, the general<br> consensus seems to be that the title refers to a mulatto barber, a common<br> occurrence among freemen in the South as well as other parts of the country.<br> "Yellow" is a term applied to a light-skinned bi-racial person in the 19th<br> century (see the notes for "Yellow Rose of Texas").<br> It appears to have also been fairly common for fiddlers and other musicians to<br> moonlight as barbers (or vice versa). John Heine has found a reference to a<br> mulatto barber named William B. Taylor, a fiddler born in Kentucky in 1821, who<br> called the figures as he played. Taylor's Band, composed of barbers, played<br> for hundreds of balls, banquets and steamboat excursions in the Minnesota<br> territory from 1849 until his death in 1862. Taylor called figures while he<br> played and is was remembered as having "a voice a brigadier general might envy".<br> Mark Wilson remarks that fiddlers east of Portsmouth, Ohio, often called the<br> tune "Arthur Berry".<br> The latter 18th century Scottish air "Aldivalloch", also known as "Over the<br> Moor among the Heather" may well be an ancestor of "Yellow Barber"/"Arthur<br> Berry".<br> The banjo tab is by John Letscher who says that it is mostly from the playing<br> of Gerry Milnes and Lorraine Lee-Hammond on Hell Up Coal Holler.<br> It was printed in Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes vol. 1 (1994),<br> Lamancusa's The Gettysburg Collection of Old-Time Fiddle Tunes (2021),<br> Silberberg's Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern (2002) and<br> Titon's Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001).<br> It was recorded by Buddy Thomas on Buddy Thomas: Recordings from the<br> collection of Dave Spilkia & Ray Alden (2015),<br> Buddy Thomas on Kitty Puss: Old Time Fiddle Music From Kentucky (1976),<br> Dave Bing on Family and Friends,<br> John W. Summers on John W. Summers, Indiana Fiddler (1984) (as “Arthur Barry”),<br> Buddy Thomas (et al) on The Art of Traditional Fiddle (2001),<br> Bruce Molsky on Lost Boy (1996) and<br> Gerry Milnes & Lorraine Lee Hammond on Hell Up Coal Holler (1999).<br>
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