Here’s a lilting old-time fiddle tune from Henry Reed (1884-1968) of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Mr. Reed was in his 80s when Alan Jabbour recorded himas part of a series of recordings he made as a graduate student at Duke University. Alan’s recordings, field notes, musical transcriptions, and photographs are now available on line in a wonderful website called Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection. When I was seventeen, I spent a happy summer transcribing Henry Reed tunes at the Library of Congress as an intern with Alan Jabbour.

Sally Ann Johnson (dance speed, mp3) [wpdm_file id=385]
Sally Ann Johnson (sheet music, pdf) [wpdm_file id=386]

Here are notes about the tune from Alan:

Henry Reed’s “Sally Ann Johnson” in D is another tune that is widespread in British and American instrumental tradition. Irish variants appear with some regularity as “The Boys of Bluehill”; see O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, #1700, Roche, Collection of Irish Airs, Marches, and Dance Tunes, vol. 3, 64 (#183). A related Irish piece is O’Neill’s Music of Ireland #1815 “Freedom for Ireland”; Roche, vol. 3, 74 (#196) “Nights of Gladness Quadrille.” Compare also “Banks of Inverness” (One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, p. 11, and other titles and versions). American variants include “Beaus of Oake Hill” in Howe, Musician’s Companion (1844), vol. 3, p. 54; “The Beaux of Oak Hill Reel,” One Thousand Fiddle Tunes p. 28; Knauff, Virginia Reels (1839), “The Two Sisters”; Ford, Traditional Music of America, p. 57, “Lonesome Katy.” A cognate Blue Ridge tune is Taylor Kimble’s “Old Ark A-Moving” (Blue Ridge Barn Dance, County 746).Many printed sets are cast as hornpipes with the characteristic three eighth notes ending each strain. Henry Reed’s tune has the feel of an American breakdown, but its circular structure for the melody leading from the second strain back to the first is unusual.