I learned this tune after hearing and playing it a bunch down at Clifftop. Every year it seems as if a tune that was never on my radar pops up. I go somewhere and it seems as if everyone is playing and what’s more, the say they’ve always known it.
A few years back on the Saturday before the “official” start of Clifftop it was raining and I ducked under the awning of Andy and Toni Williams. We got to playing and this tune came up and Andy was ripping it on the fiddle and Toni was playing bass. I made them play it twice. The next day I stumbled into the camp of Marynell and Gene Young from Texas and then they started playing it, and yes, I made them play it twice.
A year or so later I awoke with it playing in my head so I finally did a little research, listened to a bunch of recordings then tabbed out a version myself. This comes from Missouri fiddler Pete McMahan. He learned it from his uncle (the Sheriff) who learned it from an itinerant fiddler at a railroad station. Here’s a great link to the story:
http://fiddlingmissouri.blogspot.com/2013/03/gilsaw-fiddler-from-hard-times-and-his.html
Thank you Amy for playing guitar and thank you Chad for recording us at your excellent studio Juniper Sound.