LITTLE MAGGIE. Old-Time, Bluegrass; Breakdown and Song. USA; western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia. A Mixolydian. Recorded by the Stanley Brothers in 1946, when their music was more old-time than bluegrass in style. Mt. Airy, North Carolina, fiddler Tommy Jarrell remembered the tune "going around" the Round Peak area (where he grew up) around 1915 or 1916, and became quite popular with the younger folk. A tragedy occured about the same time when his 14 year old cousin, Jullie Jarrell, was tending a fire in the kitchen stove and, thinking it was out, poured kerosine over the wood to renew it which suddenly caused flames to flare and severely burn her. Tommy related:
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I was coming from the mill on horseback carrying a sack of
cornmeal and all at once I saw the smoke and heard the younguns
come running towards me crying, 'Jullie's burnt up and the
house is a-fire.' I jumped off the horse and ran as fast as I could
to the house--later I though about how much faster I could have
gotten there by throwing the meal off and riding the horse, but
you don't think clear at times like that. When I reached the door
I saw Aunt Susan kneeling on the floor above Julie, weeping,
her hands all blistered from beating out the fire with a quilt.
Jullie was laying there crying, but there wasn't much we could
do for her so we ran to the spring for water to put out the fire
in the house. They put Jullie to bed right away--her whole body
was burned up to her chin, and at first she cried in pain but
after a while she didn't feel anything at all. That evening as
she was laying there she asked me to get my banjo and sing
"Little Maggie" for her. That was the only thing she wanted
to hear--it had just recently come around and everyone
seemed to take to it. I expect I played it the best I ever had
in my life, with the most feeling, anyway. It seemed to comfort
her and pick up her spirits a little, but by the following morning
she was dead. (Richard Nevins)
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The song appears to have been played in neighbouring Grayson County, Virginia, a generation earlier, according to Richard Nevins, which points out how isolated the mountainous regions were around the turn of the century.
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Yonder stands little Maggie, a dram-glass in her hand,
She's left me for another, left me for another man.
***
Flying Fish 102, New Lost City Ramblers - "20 Years/Concert Performances" (1978). Heritage XXXIII, Ernest East, Lawrence Lowe, Fred Cockerham - "Visits" (1981. Recorded at Tommy Jarrell's New Year's Eve party, 1972). Melodeon 7322, The Stanley Brothers. Rich-R-Tone 423, The Stanley Brothers.