“Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase” traces to the fiddler Dudley Vance (1880–1962) of Bluff City, in the Washington County region of East Tennessee. Vance recorded the tune in 1927 with his band, the Tennessee Breakdowners, under the title “Washington County Fox Chase”; the recording went unissued for decades before appearing on a reissue collection in the 1970s.
The piece belongs to the old tradition of the fox chase, a descriptive fiddle showpiece in which the player imitates the sounds of a hunt — the baying of hounds, the call of the horn, the running of the fox. Such tunes were as much theater as music, and they remain a vivid link to the string-band repertoire of the early recording era.
This recording features the fiddler Nate Leath, an accomplished player of old-time and bluegrass fiddle, performing the tune with a group of fellow musicians and carrying a nearly century-old piece to a new audience.