Eck Robertson – Old Time Texas Fiddler
Historians tell us that in 1922 Alexander Campbell Robertson made the first country or “hillbilly” record: a 78 on RCA Victor with “Sallie Gooden” on one side, “Arkansas Traveller” on the other. Robertson was a lifelong working musician, born in Arkansas, whose home was in Texas. His fiddling speaks with the public bravado of a man who travelled with medicine shows, tent dances, fiddling contests, radio shows, theater gigs (he provided the live soundtrack to silent westerns), “magic lantern” shows, and Old Confederate Soldiers Reunions.
The authority and skill of his playing derives from the solo essence of his work. The style of a contest fiddler was different from that of the day’s string band: It was aggressive, virtuoso, and implied a desire to cut any other player around. Robertson’s long bow strokes could weave together four tunes or more, with precision and speed and melodic concentration. He didn’t just make a fiddle talk, it barked and soared like an auctioneer going full tilt.
Though the sequence of this absolutely crucial reissue doesn’t illuminate the recording history — the order jumps back and forth in time, perhaps for variety’s sake, though it’s hard to find rhyme or reason — Charles K. Wolfe’s liner notes argue against the much-held notion that Robertson and his fiddling companion Henry Gilliland journeyed to New York in hopes of a recording date with a talking-machine company but were met with only passing interest. On the contrary, those first sessions in June and July of 1922 virtually established Victor’s old-time fiddling catalogue and presaged the hillbilly record boom.
That success didn’t much translate financially for Robertson, and though he recorded again in 1929 (featuring slightly more elaborate arrangements), his commericial recording days were essentially over, apart from some good folk revival recordings. Eck did record some 100 tracks for the Sellers radio transcription company in Dallas, but they’ve never surfaced (if you know where they might be or who might have them, call me collect, day or night).
Every moment on this disc is worth savoring, down to the 78 RPM static (a minor nuisance; the overall sound quality is excellent), but the set piece remains “Sallie Gooden”, as moving and fascinating a solo as anything Coltrane ever played. It’s clear why the performance provides such a standard for other fiddlers. Eck’s melody is at once sharp and stable at the core, but for three minutes and nine seconds it also changes repeatedly, with some 13 variations of sub-melodies spinning off it. Beneath, there’s an intense meditative drone, within which Robertson sets off a flurry of calls and responses, breaks open a shower of sparks. There’s much history behind it, much beauty too.