Artist: Uncle Am Stuart
Author: traditional
Label: Vocalion
Year: 1924
Brother of George R. Stuart who along with Thomas Ryman organized mass revival meetings at the Union Gospel Tabernacle, Nashville's 'Mother Church' renamed Ryman Auditorium after Ryman's death in 1904. This acoustic marvel hosted the Grand Ole' Opry radio shows between 1925 and 1974. Fiddler Uncle Am was the first Tennessean to record country music commercially. He was 73 years old when he recorded this in New York. As a witness of the Civil War, his story was broadcast on radio.
Covers:
Norris Land [on Okeh]
Allen Sisson [on Edison Bell cylinder as Bonnie George Campbell; same melody but slower]
Williamson Brothers & Curry [reissued on Document-cd Old Time Music From West Virginia]
Woody Guthrie [for Moses Asch with Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry; also as End Of My Life]
Bascom Lamar Lunsford [as Bonnie George Campbell]
Pete Seeger [on Fronteer Ballads; Dylan's inspiration for Oxford Town]
Lonnie Donegan [n°1 UK]
Buffy Sainte-Marie [as Doggett's Gap, crediting Bascom Lamar Lunsford]
Nic Jones [as Bonny George Campbell]
In history class all American children learn that in 1773 Daniel Boone led a band of pioneers into Kentucky over the so-called Wilderness Road crossing the fearsome Cumberland Gap. Different variations of this melody circulate. Sounds like an Irish or a Scottish reel, not one in particular though.
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)