Hell Among the Yearlings

Hell Among the Yearlings is a traditional old-time breakdown in D major from the Upper South with a G major version printed in Marion Thede’s The Fiddle Book (1967). The title was already in circulation by October 1917, when The Columbus Commercial listed it in the repertoire of Mississippi fiddle contests. Earlier that year, The Starkville News listed a tune called, “Trouble Among the Yearlings”, likely the same tune. In the version most players know, the high part runs a measure long because the melody pauses for two beats on the high A mid-phrase, a habit Alan Jabbour associated with West Virginia and Kentucky fiddlers, though Virginia fiddler Henry Reed, recorded by Jabbour in 1967, played it with square eight-bar parts. The Kessinger Brothers made the first known commercial recording in February 1928 for Brunswick (235, with “Turkey in the Straw” on the other side), Jabbour traced most later versions back to that record, and David Brody’s transcription in The Fiddler’s Fakebook (1983) follows Kessinger. Tennessee fiddler Arthur Smith’s setting appears on the 1964 Folkways LP Look! Who’s Here: Old Timers of the Grand Ole Opry.

Note: Early newspaper accounts record tune titles, not melodies, so they can confirm a name was in use but cannot verify that the tune matches a specific version.