Old Dangerfield

Monroe built the tune in A from three very different sections. The first, on the low strings, sets a minor-sounding scale over major chords. The second is like a hornpipe, and the third is a long-bow section on the high strings. For all the flatted thirds in the melody, the chords stay major. Monroe’s own performances left much of the melody open to interpretation, so fiddlers have settled it in their own ways. Jimmy Campbell and Stuart Duncan each played versions of their own on stage, and the transcriber takes James Price’s 1998 version as a sign of how the tune had changed among tradition-minded fiddlers. The mandolinist Mike Compton has pointed out that another Monroe tune, “Tanyards,” is similar.

The Nashville Bluegrass Band put it on Home of the Blues (Sugar Hill, 1991), with Stuart Duncan on fiddle and Roland White on mandolin. Chris Thile included it on Leading Off (Sugar Hill, 1994), with Byron Berline on fiddle and Pete Wernick on banjo. The Infamous Stringdusters recorded it for their 2021 album A Tribute to Bill Monroe, with Jeremy Garrett on fiddle.