Bill Cheatham

A traditional American fiddle reel in A major, common across the Upper South and probably originating in the southeastern United States in the late 19th century. It was a category piece at an 1899 fiddle contest in Gallatin, Tennessee, where competitors each played their version for a prize, per Charles Wolfe’s research in The Devil’s Box. Eck Robertson’s 1922 Victor session yielded the earliest known recording (as part of his “Brilliancy Medley”), and Arthur Smith with the Delmore Brothers recorded another influential version. Kenny Baker’s 1968 reading on Portrait of a Bluegrass Fiddler (County Records) is the standard bluegrass reference.