Betty Baker

Traditional Old Time reel in D major, standard tuning, from the eastern Kentucky / West Virginia tune stock, in the repertoire of Wayne County, Kentucky fiddler Clyde Davenport (1921–2020). The long form of the title preserves the tune’s associated verse: Grover Salyer recalled his father John Salyer singing “went over the hill to see Betty Baker, she was asleep and I could not wake her.” The same melody traveled eastern Kentucky under a second name; Hiram Stamper of Knott County called it “Indian Nation” while Salyer used both names for it. Davenport’s setting is transcribed in Beisswenger, Andrade and Prouty’s Appalachian Fiddle Music (2021), and Jeff Todd Titon printed a Kentucky version collected from Manon Campbell of Letcher County in Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001, no. 5, p. 36). Davenport recorded it for the Field Recorders’ Collective (FRC 104, track 6).