The Old-Time Fiddler’s Repertory

R. P. Christeson compiled The Old-Time Fiddler’s Repertory: 245 Traditional Tunes from field recordings and notes gathered over three decades, and the University of Missouri Press published it in 1973. The volume presents scores from thirty-three fiddlers across nine states, mostly in the Midlands and Southwest, and many of the tunes had never appeared in print or on commercial recordings. Christeson grouped the tunes by musical type: breakdowns arranged by key, quadrilles, miscellaneous pieces, and waltzes. He began collecting commercial fiddle recordings in 1933 and started making live field recordings in 1947, traveling to contests and to individual fiddlers in search of the least-altered setting of a tune. Missouri players are especially well represented, and the collection is a standard reference for that regional repertoire.

The press issued a companion two-record album the same year, The Old-Time Fiddler’s Repertory: Historical Field Recordings of 41 Traditional Tunes. A second volume followed in 1984, adding scores for more than two hundred further tunes along with background on the fiddlers Christeson transcribed. Christeson, sometimes called the Dean of Missouri Fiddle Music, died in 1992. His original recordings are held at the State Historical Society of Missouri, and Slippery Hill hosts audio for the tunes.

Subtitle: 245 traditional tunes

Note: Seventy-six of the 245 entries in this collection carry generic titles in the original index, listed only as Breakdown, Quadrille, Waltz, Piece, Tune, or Schottische. These have not been catalogued individually here. Tune 129 appears in the book under a title containing a racial slur and is listed here under its documented alternate title, Run Johnny Run.