Pompey Ran Away

The missing link between country and north african music. This is a colonial American fiddle tune which comes our way via an African-American player - maybe a 1st generation African captive living as a slave - and a Scottish tourist who wrote down what he heard and published it when he got home. It is a missing link between African music and American music influenced by African immigrants. It is a living document of the survival of African music in the new world. Mind boggling.

I learned it from a fragment of sheet music in “Sinful Tunes and Spirituals” by Dena J. Epstein, which describes the music this way:

"[It lacks] any distinctive African flavor, sounding much like other non-African dances. Presumably much was lost in the transcription, as the tunes were filtered through the ears and musical sensibilities of a musician bred in the European tradition. Perhaps only the dance steps retained African elements, but it is at least possible that African aspects of the tunes may still be identified."

Because of what the author said about the lack of African sound I didn’t expect to find any, but it looked easy enough to try the tune out so I gave it a quick shot while I was reading. It’s tricky to play, like a tongue twister. There’s no apparent form, just this circular pattern made of short melodic fragments. The major scale of the melody could easily be an Irish fiddle tune, the author is right about that. But the way the motifs are woven together could never be from that source. I stuck with the tune for a couple days and when I eventually mastered it enough to really know what it was supposed to sound like what I found was something unmistakeably west African, maybe from Ghana or Mali, which is also where most slaves came from.

In my final version I tried to create variation by using a few different octaves, doubling notes, using harmonics, and shifting the accent. But I have no idea how to play in any African style of any kind; anything African you hear in this was always there.

I play it as a cross between country (representing the celtic fiddle influence) and an African kalimba player I heard once in Washington Square Park (representing the west African roots). Also there’s some punk rock in there. 80s Sonic Youth was on my mind for some reason.

The instrument is a 1965 Gibson SG going through a 12 watt National-Dobro amp made in the 1940s. The tone of this combo is incredible. I really love it. But it only works in place as a loud as a bar, because the amp makes a lot of white noise. That’s what the white noise in the recording is.