Hi, Folks. Here's what I know about the tune. I learned it from J.P. and Anadeen Fraley, I think as far back as 1962. I was 18 years old, and was hitch hiking around the Southern mountains, looking for traditional musicians. One day I saw a notice for a festival in Ashland KY, so I went. It turned out to be a sponsored by Jean Thomas, "The Traipsin' Woman," who wrote a book by that name.

J.P. and Anadeen were playing there and invited a bunch of us to their home to jam. Anadeen was playing a six-string lute that J.P. had found in Germany during WW II. He "luted" it, she said.

I never asked J.P, where he got the tune, and always assumed he'd written it himself. I haven't found it anywhere else.

The John Mason tune by the same name is recent and original.

J.P. and Anadeen were great folks, gracious and welcoming. J.P worked in the mines for more than 30 years, and was a solid member of the United Mine Workers of America union, for which I later worked during the Brookside Strike in Harlan County KY. You can learn more about that strike from film maker Barbara Koppel's great Academy Award-winning documentary "Harlan County U.S.A."

Some years later, J.P. and I were both playing the Old Songs festival near Albany NY. I got him to follow my song "Wild Rose of the Mountain" with his tune of the same name, a good memory.

Re red oak vs. white oak: When it's freshly cut, red oak smells to high heaven. I assume that if you put whiskey in red oak barrels, it would absorb some of the smell from the wood, to the point where no one would want to drink it. But, as a building material, red oak is superb. The front sill in the mountain cabin where I've written songs for over 30 years is cut from red oak.

All the best,

Si