“Cripple Creek” is a traditional Appalachian tune and song, its melody of unknown origin and its lyrics probably no older than about 1900. The verses are light and playful, following a young man’s trips up and down the creek to see his sweetheart.
Where the name comes from is uncertain — some tie it to the Colorado gold-rush town of Cripple Creek, others to a place in Wythe County, Virginia, and still others note that “cripple” was an old word for a winding, crooked stream. Lyrical fragments were collected in print by 1915, and the first recordings followed in the 1920s.
“Cripple Creek” became a bedrock tune of old-time and bluegrass music — very often the first piece a beginning banjo player learns. The Stoneman Family, a clan with deep roots in the recorded history of country music, included it on a 2002 collection of their family tradition.
