Lost Indian (AEac#)

Lost Indian is a traditional Old Time reel in A major, played with the fiddle cross-tuned AEac#, a tuning also called Black Mountain Rag or Calico tuning. The title covers a family of related but melodically distinct tunes documented from Virginia to Texas, and collectors including Guthrie Meade, Mark Wilson, and Charles Wolfe have argued that what holds the family together is the tuning rather than any fixed melody. Players commonly punctuate the tune with a vocal whoop, which Eck Robertson sang over the held notes of the C part. Ed Haley’s Kentucky setting, recorded at home in 1946, is crooked, carrying a short measure that Eck Robertson’s does not; Robertson’s, taped at his Amarillo home in 1963, adds a third part built around a sustained high note and a sung whoop. E.F. Adam printed a setting in this tuning in the novelties section of Old Time Fiddlers’ Favorite Barn Dance Tunes (St. Louis, 1928).

Not the same tune as Lost Indian in D major, a standard-tuning melody associated with Clark Kessinger’s recording. Key and tuning are the reliable distinguishing features.