Tombigbee waltz

The only recording that I have ever heard of this is on the Boys of the Lough recording “To Welcome Paddy Home”. Its a real sweet tune although I’m not real sure if can be classified as Celtic. None the less, IMHO its a good session tune.
Ralph

Is this actually the way it’s played? It seems to come out as a 3/8 rather than a 3/4 tune as it’s written. I massaged it to sound the way it’s played on the midi file but it won’t convert into TablEdit or Finale the way it was submitted (I get a broken bar every other bar).

To be honest with you I got lazy and pulled this abc out of my library on my hard drive so its probably something I pulled off the web some time back. That said, looking back over it, since an eighth note is getting the beat, you are correct, the time signature should be 3/8, not 3/4. If you can forgive that, the melody is pretty close to what I play, although I usually play it in the key of D major.

I was just playing around with the tune on my mandolin and kinda shifted to A major. It works wll in the key of A on the mandolin (I would assume the fiddle too). In the B section Its real easy to get a simple counter melody on the A (2nd) string. I think its a fun tune.
ralph

I know that the Tombigbee is a river in a country with former colonial connections with the UK but I can’t remember where. I’m pretty sure that Willy Taylor (Northumbria’s finest) used to play it and he had tunes from all over the world. Can anyone help?
Noel Jackson
Angels of the North

Noel, the country is USA.

Tombigbee , river, c.400 mi (640 km) long, rising in NE Miss. and flowing SE into W Alabama, then generally S to join the Alabama River and form the Mobile River before entering into Mobile Bay at Mobile. The Tombigbee is an important artery for manufactured goods. Dams and locks improve navigation on the river. In 1972 construction was begun on a canal between the Tombigbee and Tennessee rivers. The 253-mi (407-km) waterway, completed in the 1980s, is another modern link in a navigable system from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf Coast.
_______________

The dots for this tune can be found in:
’ The Scottish Ceilidh Collection for Fiddlers, Vol 3 P24’
published by Taigh Na Teud on Skye. See discussions for contact details. Time sig. is misprinted as 2/4 instead of 3/4.
Key of GMaj

Ed.

Noel, this is one of those waltzes like “Midnight On The Water” that originated in the southern States and then became popularised in Northumbria. Anthony Robb taught this to a group of us at high school in Alnwick 11 years ago - I’d forgotten it existed.

The Boys of the Lough got the tune from James Bryan, who was playing with Norman and Nancy Blake at the time. James recorded it in the early ‘80’s.

I have also known and played this as a march, with only a few differences to the transcription here.

Here’s the version that was played at last weeks session.

X:1
T:Tombigbee
M:3/4
R:Waltz
K:A
cB| A2 c2 c2 |e4 cB|A2 c2 c2 |e4 cd |c2 B2 A2| B4 ce|f2 fgfe|
c4cB| A2 c2 c2 |e4 cB|A2 c2 c2 |e4 cd |c2 B2 A2|B4 ce| f4 e2|A4 e2|
a4 e2|a4 e2|f2 fgfe|c4 cd |c2 B2 A2|B4 ce |f4 e2|c4
e2|a4 e2|a4 e2 |f2 fgfe |c4 cd |c2 B2 A2 |B4 ce| f4 e2| A4||

The Fiddler’s Companion
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/TOM_TON.htm#TOMBIGBEE_WALTZ

“TOMBIGBEE WALTZ.
AKA “Gum Tree Canoe,” Old‑Time, Waltz. G Major.

The melody is named for the Tombigbee River which flows from northeastern Mississippi into the Alabama River.
Tombigbee is rumored to mean ‘coffinmaker’ in one of the Native American languages.
A song version, “Tom Big Bee River,” attributed to S.S. Steele, was printed in Heart Songs – Melodies of Days Gone By, published in 1909 by World Syndicate Publishing Company (Cleveland; New York), although it is much older.
From the dialect employed in the lyrics, minstrel origins are indicated. S.S. Steele and A.F. Winnemore (1847) are credited with words and music in Garson’s Laura Ingles Wilder Songbook.

***
On Tom-big-be River so bright I was born,
In a hut made of husks ob de tall yaller corn,
And dar I fust meet mid my Jula so true,
An I row’d her about In my gum-tree canoe.

***
Chorus:
Singing row away, row, O’er the waters so blue,
Like feathers we’ll float in my gum-tree canoe.

***

All de day in de flied de soft cotton I hoe,
I tink ob my Jula an sing as I go;
Oh, I catch her a bird, wid a wing ob true blue,
An at night sail her ’round in my gum-tree canoe.

***
X:1
T:Tombigbee Waltz
L:1/8
M:3/4
K:C
{Bc}BA|G2 B2 B2|{B}d4 BA|G2 B2 B2|{B}d4 B2|cB A2 A2|A2 B2 d2|e4 d2|
B4 {Bc}BA|G2 B2 B2|{B}d4 BA|G2 B2 B2|{B}d4 B2|cB A2 A2|A2 B2 d2|e2 d2 B2|G4:|
|:d2|g4 d2|g4 d2|e3 d e2|d4 B2|cB A2 A2|A2 B2 d2|e4 d2|B4 d2|g4 d2|g4 d2|
e3 d e2|d4 B2|cB A2 A2|A2 B2 d2|e2 d2 B2|G4 :|“

I didn’t know Gum Tree Canoe had been sing to the Tombigbee tune. I know the song with an entirely different melody, though it’s still in 3/4.

To somebody who grew up in Alabama, those lyrics are absurdly funny, even without the dialect.

I kinda doubt that the native Americans historically used coffins.

I believe Trump is going to ban the tune because it depicts freedom of movement, albeit of water

Is it asking too much to keep this site free of political commentary?

My take

This audio version was collected in the Arkansas Ozarks, transcribed by folklorist Mary Parler:
http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/ref/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/2643

Probably the best known folklorist from the Ozarks region, Vance Randolph (husband of Mary Parler) collected this version in the Missouri Ozarks. It’s titled “Gum Tree Canoe” in his book (4 volume collection, “Ozark Folksongs”) though the text says the singer called it “On Tom Big Bee River”:
https://books.google.com/books?id=g3JtLNe3nroC&pg=PA302&lpg=PA302&dq=vance+randolph+gum+tree+canoe&source=bl&ots=OUUPFYq1PY&sig=Jj8l6gd9rfK7Vl-6Y5wc-jScX1s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjV_d2CuIbeAhXim-AKHcMOC2kQ6AEwAXoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=vance%20randolph%20gum%20tree%20canoe&f=true

John Hartford singing “Gum Tree Canoe”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quZZy73SHvE

play video