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| Eck Robertson |
‘Arkansas Traveler’
Recorded June 30,
1922
Music and lyrics attributed to
Col. Sanford Faulkner
Performed by Eck
Robertson and Henry Gilliland
3:03
‘Sallie Gooden’
Recorded July 1, 1922
Folk tune
Performed by Eck
Robertson
3:10
Where do folk songs come from? “No one knows, that’s why
they’re folk songs.” Yes, I know. However, we cultural spelunkers like the
opportunity to clamber deep inside the history of a song or melody and attempt
to trace it back as far as we can. Hey ho!
First things first, though. These are considered to be the
first recorded country songs (they would be classified as “hillbilly songs” for
some time; country music was niche music until the singing cowboys of screen
and radio brought into the popular culture), and Alexander Campbell “Eck”
Robertson (1887-1975) couldn’t have been picked more deliberately to represent
the development of traditional music.
He was born and grew up on a farm in the Texas panhandle, on
the flat, treeless plains of Llano Estacado. His grandfather was a competitive
fiddler, as were his father and uncles. By the time Eck was 16, he was making a
living as a musician. Eck traveled with medicine shows, performed in silent
movie theaters, played at fiddling contests. He worked up a routine of patter
and jokes, and fancy tricks, even coaxing speech sounds out of the instrument
with the aid of a metal contact.
He and fellow fiddler and Civil War vet Henry C. Gilliland
went to New York, auditioned for the Victor Talking Machine Company, and
recorded a few tunes. Robertson would record sporadically after that, but it
wasn’t until he was rediscovered during the urban folk boom of the early 1960s
that he was finally given some of the recognition and honor he deserved.
Robertson’s virtuosic technique is evident on both
recordings; in “Arkansas Traveler” he plays the high harmony to Gilliland’s
melody, and in “Sally Gooden,” he whips off the melody and a dozen variations
with seeming effortlessness and inventiveness, crashing along at a headstrong
pace, underlining all with a compelling, droning ground note. This is dance
music, social music, but there is a sense of pride and professionalism as well.
Robertson and Gilliland weren’t happened upon in the fields by a Lomax. Music
was their business, and in this way music that could almost be defined as
tribal moved out into the light and started mutating in response to commercial
pressures, technological considerations, and popular taste.
Unlike many American folk tunes, “The Arkansas Traveler”
comes with some documentation. It came to life as a result of a real-life
encounter (or least the embellished superstructure of one). Col. Sanford C.
“Sandy” Faulkner (1803-1874) was a prominent cotton planter in Chicot County,
Arkansas. In the 1840, he campaigned with some friendly politicians, canvassing
the hinterlands of the districts for votes. The party of five men got lost in
the backwoods of the Boston Mountains, located on the Ozark Plateau in the
northwest portion of the state.
They came upon the cabin of a squatter, and Faulkner was
nominated to ask directions. The exchange, accompanied by a two-part melody,
became a favorite story that Faulkner performed at dinners and functions, until
it jumped and spread by word of mouth. Eventually, it was written down; the
complete original text can be read here at Historic
Arkansas. The gist of the story that the traveler is thwarted time
and time again in his attempts to find out where he is, how he can get where he
needs to go, whether he and his friends can find food and shelter, or even to
establish some kind of communication.
Over and over again, the squatter shoots the traveler down
with sarcastic wit. “Does this road go all the way to Little Rock?” “It ain’t
gone nowhere yet.” “Have you lived here all your life?” “Not yet.” “You’re not
very smart, are you?” “No. But I ain’t lost.” Each squatter response is
punctuated with the repetitive sawing of the signature phrase on his fiddle.
(All former children will recognize the tune as carrying the later lyrics,
“Pickin’ up a baby bumblebee/Won’t my mommy be so proud of me!” etc.)
Finally the traveler says, “Why don’t you play the rest of
that tune?” Squatter says, “I don’t know it.” The traveler takes the fiddle and
completes the song with a flourish . . . and suddenly the squatter knows how to
get to Little Rock, and has room for the strangers, and plenty of food, and a
bit of whiskey as well.
The story is solid and well-crafted, punctuated with a
string of jokes funny in themselves before the big payoff, musically and comedically.
The conflict between the “civilized” person and the simple-acting-but-sly
country bumpkin is ancient and easily understood. In 1858, Edward Washburn
created a painting depicting the story; it became popular by virtue of being
reproduced as an inexpensive Currier & Ives lithograph. It became a vaudeville
sketch in 1869, and played on national stages for 20 years. Charles Ives
incorporated the tune into his Country
Band March (1905), skewering it in the process. Since then, the song has
been covered countless times, most notably by Pete Seeger on Frontier Ballads (1954) and Jerry Garcia
and David Grisman on Not for Kids Only
(1993).
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| Washburn's 1858 painting, The Arkansas Traveler |
“Sallie Gooden” has a more ambiguous origin story. It can be
searched for under a number of variant names — Sally, Sallie, Goodin, Gooden,
Goodwin, Godwin. The tune is a simple reel, the kind played at dances or
“play-parties,” the latter being social events for teens in pre-technology
days. The titular heroine is the object of both affection and teasing — “Had a
piece of pie, had a piece of puddin’/Gave ‘em both away just to see Sally
Goodin”; “Sally is my darlin’, Sally is my daisy/When she says she hates me, I
think I’m going crazy”, and on and on, with hundreds of improvised couplets
that can be tacked on as long as breath lasts. It is said that the original
Sally Goodin ran a beloved boarding house on the Big Sandy River in Kentucky
during the Civil War, and was commemorated by Confederate soldiers stationed
there.
Under the words is the melody, which swings brightly and
merrily in a major mode, a simple seesaw that’s easy to learn and build on.
Peel back further and you’ll find a darker, quieter source for the song. Before
“Sallie Gooden” had lyrics, it was known as “Boatin’ Up Sandy,” when the river
was the quickest and easiest path to take north to Ohio, and bore the bulk of
commercial trade in the region. “Sandy” is housed in the minor key, a shambling
and melancholy piece that aches with loneliness. Leave it to humankind’s
natural inclination to leaven such sentiments with humor and energy,
transforming a haunting tune into something more upbeat and memorable.
The National Recording Registry Project tracks one
writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording
Registry in chronological order. Up next: ‘The Boys of the Lough/The Humours of Ennistymon.’
