"Possum Hunt" 1841 fiddle tune from Georgia by way of William Sidney Mount
Channel: Barrow Wheary
Date: 2024-04-02

"Possum Hunt" comes to us from the manuscript collection of famous Long Island painter William Sidney Mount. The tune was transcribed and sent to William Sidney in a letter dated January 19, 1841, by his brother Robert Nelson Mount who was, at that time, working as an itinerant dancing master in Monticello, Georgia. For this piece, Nelson notes that the fiddle is tuned ADAE, commonly known as "high bass" tuning among old-time fiddlers, with the added comment that this tuning lends it the "Negro touch." 

Barrow Wheary: fiddle, banjo, bones.