East Virginia Blues

“East Virginia Blues” is a traditional Appalachian song with no single composer; its earliest known recording is Buell Kazee’s “East Virginia,” cut in New York on April 20, 1927, for Brunswick. The lyric is assembled from floating verses — some traceable to 17th-century England, others shared with songs such as “Man of Constant Sorrow” and “The Drowsy Sleepers” — and Cecil Sharp collected an early Kentucky variant titled “In Old Virginny” from Judy Baker in Harlan County in 1917. Two musical streams developed from the same material: a modal banjo version (Kazee’s, in mountain-minor tuning) and a straight-major version that spread during the 1930s under titles including “East Virginia Blues” and “Greenback Dollar.” The text follows a singer who leaves East Virginia, courts a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked young woman, and grieves the parting. The Carter Family recorded it in 1934 (Victor 27494), and it later became a bluegrass standard through the Stanley Brothers and Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys (1968).