Here’s the Kimble Family from Carroll County playing a nice tune. I have been liking and playing this version on my fiddle lately. This is a distinctive version of the tune they call Liza Jane. It’s not the common version which is the root of such tunes like Sugar Hill and Chicken in a Bread Tray.
Kyle Creed played it as a banjo tune on his banjo LP from the 1980s backed up by guitar. I don’t think Kyle’s banjo version would have jived with Taylor Kimble’s fiddle version although the guitar chord pattern is the same. In the version here, the banjo seems to be in back-up mode or ’seconding’ as the old-timers around here used to say. It’s their second style for certain tunes that is chord based and rhythmic to compliment and back up the fiddle rather than try to play the melody notes as an equal to the fiddle.
Somehow I got to calling it Big Liza as opposed to Little Liza. Harold Hausenfluck at some point recorded it with his one man band and coined the name New Cut Road to distinguish it from the common version.
Comment from Andy Buckman
Hi all, Here is Harold’s old band, The Dixie Beeliners, doing New Cut Road.
Comment from Gail Gillespie
Here’s Luther Davis playing this same Liza Jane, recorded by Andy Cahan and Alice Gerrard for the Old Time Way LP. That’s a really good one. I treasure that cassette.
Comment from Mac Traynham
Thanks for all the various versions by different old timers from Virginia. Here’s a version by the now defunct Dry Hill Draggers. This is from the most recent recording they made I think.
They had a knack for making any good tune danceable, thus their popularity throughout the 30+ years.