"Margaret's Waltz"

#608 / Flood Time Capsule: 2017

On some nights — the lucky ones — the ghosts come out to visit the musicians who are gathered in a circle to share tunes.

The friendliest ghosts were very much on Doug Chaffin’s mind on a June evening nine years ago this week when he launched into “Margaret’s Waltz” with Paul Martin and Charlie Bowen, as you can hear in the video below:

For many years, this beautiful Pat Shuldham-Shaw composition was associated with Doug’s old buddy, the late great fiddler J.P. Fraley. Doug played and toured with J.P. for many, many years and learned scores of tunes from him. Perhaps our finest musical gift from J.P. was his teaching everyone “Margaret’s Waltz.”

When the 87-year-old Fraley died in February 2011, Flood fiddler Joe Dobbs took up the tune as a tribute to his old friend. Joe never failed to cite J.P.’s influence before playing the song.

By the time Joe died four years later, “Margaret’s Waltz” was as much associated with him in Flood circles as J.P., as you can hear in this episode of the band’s weekly podcast from October 2009.

In fact, whatever the musicians gathered to jam at Doug and Donna’s house in Ashland, Ky., the evening always ended with a playing of “Margaret’s Waltz” in honor of both J.P. and Joe.

About the Song

In 1959, English folk composer and collector Pat Shuldham-Shaw wrote this song to commemorate the retirement of Margaret Grant, an influential representative in Devon for the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

It was officially premiered at the opening of the Sidmouth Folk Festival, accompanied by a dance the composer also devised, and was often paired with a companion tune titled “Farewell to Devon.”

While it started as an English folk tune, the melody spread globally through the Scottish fiddle tradition.

The famous Shetland fiddler Aly Bain learned the tune from New York musicians while touring the United States. Bain took the tune back to Scotland, eventually recorded it with his band The Boys of the Lough, and popularized it so effectively that many assumed it was a traditional Scottish or Shetland melody.

In a well-known anecdote, Bain once proudly played the tune to Pat Shaw, believing it would be right up the composer’s alley and asked him if he liked it

“Of course I do,…” . Shaw famously replied, “I wrote it!”

And here’s where our story circles back on itself. It turns out that J.P. Fraley learned “Margaret’s Waltz” from Aly Bain himself during the filming of Bain’s 1985 documentary series, Down Home, when Aly famously came to Appalachian to explore the migration of fiddle music from the British Isles to America.

Meanwhile, in Floodlandia…

With Doug Chaffin’s own passing in 2023, he joined the pantheon of fiddling spirits commemorated in the Floodisphere by “Margaret’s Waltz.”

In fact, one of the loveliest tracks on 2020’s Speechless: The Instrumentals album, Doug’s last studio visit with the band, is his rendering of the beloved tune. As you’ll hear by clicking the button below, it is perhaps The Flood’s most definitive version of the song to date:

The track opens with Doug on fiddle, then hands the tune off to Floodster Emeritus Stewart Schneider for a stately Autoharp chorus. Next up is that other veteran Floodster, Paul Martin, who lays down a pretty mandolin moment before turning it back over to Doug, who by now has switched to his guitar for the song’s beautiful conclusion.