Snowflake Reel

The tune was on record by 1957. That year Earl Mitton and the Valley Rhythm Boys issued it on a Quality single, and Don Messer and His Islanders on an Apex single, both crediting Traugott as composer. Traugott’s own recording was on the Starday anthology Country Express in 1960, and the same year Tommy Jackson included it on his Decca LP Square Dances Without Calls.

It is a reel or breakdown in D major, in two parts, both with irregular measures. The B-flat chord under the second part, as the Fiddler’s Companion puts it, “often is the bane of unwary guitarists.” Among American fiddlers it spread first along the Canadian border and in the Midwest, especially Missouri. The fiddler Vic Kibler of Hamilton County, New York, learned it from one of Traugott’s records.

Vic Jordan recorded it for Pickaway (Atteiram, 1973), and Brother Oswald and Charlie Collins included it on Oz and Charlie (Rounder, 1976). Bobby Hicks recorded it as “Snowflake Breakdown” on Texas Crapshooter (County, 1978), with Sam Bush on mandolin, Alan Munde on banjo, Roland White on guitar and Roy Huskey Jr. on bass. Peg Head Nation credits recordings by Hicks and Vassar Clements with making it a bluegrass favorite.