All Those New Years Memories
#552 / Flood Time Capsule: 2008
The year’s end has often featured important events in The Flood story.
The band was actually born at a New Year’s Eve party back in the early 1970s, as we’ve reported before. Not long ago — on another New Year’s Eve — we celebrated The Flood’s first 50 years.
And we never forget all those marvelous New Year’s Eve parties at the late Nancy McClellan’s place. Why, it was at one of Nancy’s fabulous year-end fetes that we drew dear Doug Chaffin into our fold, where he played for the remaining quarter century of his life.
Yes, in the Floodisphere, there’s just something about this week between Christmas and New Year’s that is so conducive to the coming together of friends, old and new.
Paging 2008
Seventeen years ago this week, for instance, on the Saturday night after Christmas, the band performed a benefit concert for Arts Resources of the Tri-State, which operated out of the stately old Huntington High School building not far from the Bowen House.
It was a great turnout. More than a hundred people had called in reservations, but a long line of people showed up without reservations, so the organizers scurried around setting up more tables and chairs. Eventually everybody was seated and the hosts didn’t run out of food.
For Pamela and Charlie Bowen, a particularly sweet memory of the Dec. 28, 2008, show are that several of Pamela’s cousins and their wives came in from Richmond and Hagerstown for the evening, joining Pamela’s sister, Bonnie, and her husband, Roy, who drove over from Ashland for the fun.
Several days before the show, our old buddy Dave Lavender wrote a nice preview in The Herald-Dispatch. Click here for Dave’s piece.
Unfortunately, we have no recording of the sets from that night’s concert. (Obviously, we were still getting used that new digital recorder with which we had just launched the band’s new weekly podcast.)
Susie’s Favorite Fiddle Tune
However, we do remember one of the tunes we played that night because we chose it a few nights earlier at the band’s regular weekly jam session.
It was Christmas Eve and The Flood turned it into a bit of a party. When Joe Dobbs asked Susie Peyton if she had any requests, he grinned at the reply. It was Susie’s favorite fiddle tune: “Arkansas Traveler.” Click the button below to hear his performance at the jam session and know that it was as good or better at the show four days later.
About the Song
The story of “Arkansas Traveler,” starting before the Civil War, is a tapestry of frontier wit and musical history with the exploits of a man named Col. Sanford (or Sandford) Faulkner.
Born in Kentucky, Sandy Faulkner was a man of many roles — a planter, a banker, an unsuccessful politician — who found himself canvassing the rugged outback districts of Arkansas during a political campaign in the early 1840s.
Faulkner was said to be traveling with other notable politicians when the group lost its way in the Boston Mountains in the Ozark Plateau in northwestern Arkansas. The party eventually stopped at a humble log home to ask for directions.
While the exact details of what occurred at that cabin are lost, Faulkner was a natural performer who transformed the mundane encounter into a legendary presentation for his friends.
The Traveler and The Squatter
In Faulkner’s theatrical recasting of the event, a solitary traveler meets a squatter at a log cabin. The squatter initially meets the traveler’s inquiries with a series of humorously evasive responses. The tension breaks only after the traveler offers to play the “turn,” or the second half, of a tune that the squatter has been playing on his fiddle.
This tune is, of course, “Arkansas Traveler.” The yarn goes that upon hearing the melody completed, the squatter is so delighted that he throws open his household to the visitor.
Other Versions
That’s a cool story, but, of course, others note that as Faulkner began performing his version, similar songs and dialogues were emerging outside of Arkansas, making it difficult to determine with certainty which version arrived first.
Most notably, “The Arkansas Traveler and Rackinsac Waltz” was published in Cincinnati as early as 1847. Additionally, Mose Case, an African-American humorist from Buffalo, New York, became a well-known performer of the routine. Case’s version included a bit of regional snark, ending with the declaration that his traveler never had the courage to visit Arkansas again.
The routine proved to have incredible staying power, transitioning from frontier cabins to vaudeville stages and eventually into the era of recorded sound.
An Edison wax-cylinder recording from approximately 1890 survives as a testament to its popularity.
More from Joe
If all of this has you in the mood for more tunes from the late Joe Dobbs, don’t miss the Joe Channel on our free Radio Floodango music streaming service:
