Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom
I got this setting of Old-Time Blackberry Blossom from a songwriter and fiddle tune fan who I once played a few gigs with. This version differs from others others I have heard in that it uses an interesting mixed-mode scale all the way through (more normally it is only the B part that uses it). The scale is the top half of what we call Mixolydian mode (which has a flat 7th note compared to major) and the bottom half is Lydian (which has sharp 4). The composer/theorist W.A. Mathieu calls this combination Mixolydian over Lydian or Mix/Lyd. He suggests the former may seem a little darker than major and the latter might be a little brighter. So, let’s stretch this idea as far as we can— the time of year that the blackberry blossoms appear is near peak sunlight, but the air is still cooler on average than it will be later in the summer. Maybe it is less so with global warming, I guess, but...it may still be true, on average.
The other, more popular tune called Blackberry Blossom which I posted in the past is not related to this one, as far as I can tell. That one goes back to Arthur Smith, a railroad man and Grand Ole Opry performer, who wrote and popularized it. In order to differentiate the two, we call this Old-Time Blackberry Blossom, or Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom. As far as the Garfield part, John Hartford’s recording (linked below) contains a story involving someone named Garfield (the civil war general and later president, maybe?) and spitting (tobacco?) in a Blackberry patch. I don’t know if that story is true, but it is an amazing image in any case, and most probably came from Ed Haley’s family, who helped Hartford learn about Ed Haley’s music.
Notes on Playing the Tune
The main thing technique-wise is to use a very fast down bow before the 3-note slurs at the ends of each phrase. This gives you enough room to do the slur comfortably and not run out of bow. I seem to use this technique a lot— it creates a nice accent on the single note before the slur— but don’t recall a specific place I learned it.
I have used a minimum of slurs, because this tune seems to work well with a lot of separate bows, which some people might term “saw stroke.”
