Elk River Blues

Carpenter and his neighbors tried to stop the project through a lobbyist. He refused the government’s first offer for his land, took the case to court and won a higher payment, though he paid his own legal fees. He stayed in the Elk River house while the dam went up, even after most of his neighbors had left, and tore the old place down and moved part of it to his new home. About the tune he said that he was sitting around one day with the blues, thinking about his old homeplace on the Elk River, and started sawing on the fiddle, and that is what he came up with.

Carpenter’s LP Elk River Blues: Traditional Fiddle Tunes from Braxton County, W. Va. came out in 1986 on Augusta Heritage Records (AHR-003) and includes the tune. The Reed Island Rounders also recorded it, on their 2002 album Goin’ Home.