Kitchen Girl

“Kitchen Girl” is a traditional Old Time breakdown in A mixolydian/A dorian, from the Virginia–West Virginia region of the Upper South. Alan Jabbour collected it in 1966 from Henry Reed, an influential fiddler from Glen Lyn, Virginia, and the tune’s unusual two-part modal structure — an A part in A mixolydian and a B part in A minor/dorian — gives it a distinctly modal, almost Celtic character that sets it apart from most Old Time repertoire. The Library of Congress notes that while tunes with a general resemblance exist, no clear variant has been identified, and the current view is that all American versions derive from Reed via Jabbour’s collection. Jabbour introduced the tune to the Hollow Rock String Band, who placed it at the center of the old-time revival centered in Durham/Chapel Hill in the late 1960s; subsequent recordings include the Hollow Rock String Band (Traditional Dance Tunes, Kanawha 311), the Highwoods String Band (No. 3 Special, Rounder 0074, 1977), Oscar and Eugene Wright (Old-Time Fiddle and Guitar Music from West Virginia, Rounder 0089), and the Boys of the Lough with Jay Ungar (Good Friends, Good Music, Philo 1051, 1977).