The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1886-05-26
A PIONEER FIDDLER OF THE WEST.

Professor Tosso, of Newport, KY, who is
said to be dying, is one of the pioneer fid-
dlers of the West. He claims to have been
the hero of the adventure in Arkansas out OF
which grew the musical absurdity known as
THE Arkansaw Traveller" In his palmy
days Tosso gave concerts all through the
West and South, and was rated as an extra
ordinary violinist. He is eighty-fye years
of age.-Chicago Tribune.
Tosso, forty years or more ago. kept mu-
sic store in Cincinnati, and frequently made
excursions to the larger towns around giving
concerts, sometimes alone and sometimes
with vocalist or harpist or pianist to help
He has been in this city several times ap-
pearing first here fully forty-ive years ago,
and was the first fiddler" we ever had here
who could play something better than
Zip Coon" BROAD Rifle" or Leather
Brooches" Our own pioneer performers were
ball artists exclusively. They played jigs
and ''hoe-downs' for 'puncheon-splitting"
dances, and there were no better artists of
their grade than Bill Bagwell, Joe Rouse or
old DOS a-dos'-''do-sa-do'' he was al
ways called from one of his dance phrases.
But any such music as a sonata from Bee
thoven or Schumanns "Trasimersi'' was as
far beyond their comprehension as the "In-
stitutes of Menu" Tosso could play good
music and play it well, but he couldn't make
ii popular and it never became so till in
creasing German settlement and diffusion of
German taste and culture naturalized it, and
that began about the time that ToSso was
finishing his concert excursions, at least in
this direction.
Among his selections of classic music he
usually introduced one or more of the popu-
lar airs OF the time, and of these the "Arkan
saw Traveller was the most popular. 1t was
certainly one of the livelist and prettlest. He
always told the story of the Traveller" stop
ping before Arkansaw cabin to make in
quiries about the road, and listening to the
owner attempting the tune on his fiddle, but
couldn't have told it well if his English had
been better, and his accent damaged ever the
inferior quality of the narration. He never
pretended to be the composer OF the
air. nor did anybody claim it
for him in those days. The "ArkansaT
Traveller" like "Grey Eagle and "Wagoner''
named for the rivals in the great Kentucky
horse race a half-century or SO ago-and
Zip Coon" 'rH-ll on the Wabash, f" Rack
back Davy," Matches Under the HILL"
'Sugar in Gourd," and fifty other dancing
tunes known to old-time fddlers and dancers
had no composer, in the sense that the better
class of music has. 1t "growed," like Topsy
from two or three pleasing musical phrases
that some fellow had accidentally struck in
his practice, and repeated till others learned
them and added to them and finally made
a complete air of them.
The origin of many popular songs was
much the same. Nobody knows who was
the author of the Hunters of Kentucky"
or ''Perry's Victory" or ''St Clair's Defeat"
or ''Poor Old Maids" or Cali on Hobbies"
or the "Great Sea Snake" or Polly Hop
kins" or any of the old songs that the grand
fathers and mothers of the present gener-
alton entertained themselves with in their
young days, Now the songs are as COM
pletelv lost as their origin, except where
some bald-headed old fellow, who was sort
OF society minstrel in his youth, can recall
verse or two; or where some
collector of rare old books has
preserved copy of the " Western
Songster," or the Columbian Song Book"
or some similar collection OF the folk
songs" of half century ago, before negro
minstrelsy in its crudest form had appeared
in such songs as Jenny Git Your Hoe-Cake
Done" walk Jaw Bone" wheel About
and Turn About" "Old Zip Coon," and
''Clar De Kitchen" Niger songs really
formed a sort of transition stage from
the ballad of love or war of an earlier social
condition to the better musical taste that
has developed now into as general and high
measure of culture as can be found in any
city of the same size.