Library

Fortune

Traditional

Style
Old-time
Tradition
American old-time
Form
Reel
Key
D
Level
3
Played on
Fiddle

In the public domain. Source

Music

90bpm

Click any note to start from there

History

This is a Blue Ridge tune, heard in western North Carolina and southwest Virginia and most tied to the Galax and Hillsville string bands. Galax fiddler Emmett Lundy recorded it, one of only a few tunes he ever put on record.

Tommy Jarrell said his father played it as far back as he could remember, and called it an old flatfoot dance tune. The words are about a fortune lost gambling while drunk, much like a song collected from Black singers in East Tennessee in 1905.

Once I had a fortune, I put it in my trunk, I lost it all a-gambling one night when I was drunk.
Tommy Jarrell

Read more on the Traditional Tune Archive