Here’s a tune for this week played by Stuart Lundy, one of the sons of fiddler Emmet Lundy of the Galax area.
In a recent Floyd Country Store Sunday old time jam someone requested the leaders play “Over the Waterfall”. I wasn’t the leader or I might have blown it off because I burned out on that one so long ago that I don’t claim to know how to play it anymore. I guess it was such a festivalized tune played in every jam back in the 70s.
When I finally discovered the local music of the region through the current old-timers that were still active at that time, I pushed my memory of the melody of “Over the Waterfall” back into a remote part of my brain. It has rarely surfaced since. Knowing its source is Henry Reed makes it somewhat respectable to me now days as I respect Henry Reed for his memory of so many tunes that would have been lost had he not been found and able to recorded them.
This tune played by Stuart Lundy has a different title and lots of distinctive bowing details that might lead one to say its a different tune. If you know “Over the Waterfall” then see if this strikes you as a really cool version or not. It’s the version that I try to play these days when I hear the tune brought up.
The title is “Pumpkin Head, The Fella That Looks Like Me”. Maybe I should have saved this for Halloween week!
Here’s the song of the same title by the professional old time group, The Hillbillies, that started in Galax in the 1920s, I believe. The melody is barely comparable to Lundy’s and not at all like “Over the Waterfall”.