Appalachian music. [Sandy River Belle] [music transcription]. Note sheet.

Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Compass: 12
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2
Key: G
Title change: The title appears on the transcription as "Unnamed" [= O.W.'s "Stony Ridge Stomp"]. It is transcribed after "Cluck Old Hen," near the bottom of the page.
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQC (abac abde qrqs qrde)
Related Tune(s): Tugboat and Pineywoods
Handwritten: [=O.W.'s "Stony Ridge Stomp"] Recorded: abbaab. Tendency occ. toward triplet lilt. Note lack of 4th.
Henry Reed gave no name for this fine old tune. It was played along the Blue Ridge, and there was a 1928 hillbilly record of it with the name "Sandy River Belle," played by Blue Ridge fiddler Joseph "Dad" Blackard (Victor 21130). Modern Blue Ridge fiddler Buddy Pendleton, who learned it from Dad Blackard, his great-uncle, plays it on Virginia Breakdown (County 705). Another early recording was by Dad Massey and His Family, from near Roswell, New Mexico, as part of a medley called "Tugboat and Pineywoods." Oscar Wright of Princeton, West Virginia, also played it but called it "Stony Ridge Stomp." The title may be the name of a boat, for steamboats often bore names such as "Sandy River Belle."