Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Like buds on a plant opening into flowers, shafts sprout from the chicks and new
feathers unfold.
I don't have a lot of spare time
- when I come home from work, the farm gets all of
my attention. The sheep need hay. The goat needs fresh water (in the bucket he inevit-
ably kicked over). The chickens need their evening scratch doled out and their eggs col-
lected. And the dogs need to be walked and fed. By the time everyone and everything's
been seen to, a high form of relaxation is in order. I mean music. I mean picking up an
instrument and playing.
I don't play for anyone in particular, usually just for the evening herself. And I'm
not a great musician by any means, but I get by. I play some guitar, a little clawhammer
banjo, and a beautiful mountain dulcimer engraved with leaping deer. But when the day
gets really long, nothing soothes me like the drone of my fiddle.
When I started playing old-time mountain music and researching the history of the
ballads and tunes of the South, I came across a lot of odes to chickens. Horses and
pickups may be the stars of modern country music, but chickens were the beaus of the
old-timers' hearts. Fiddle songs like “Chicken Reel” and “Cluck Old Hen” were the
hits of their time - and the musical versions of the birds themselves. They're tense and
quirky reels that make you want to strut like a rooster. Playing them always brings a
smile to peoples' faces, even the unfortunate ones without a henhouse to call their own.
Chicken Reel
