Salt Creek

This tune's story takes some care to tell, because the name on the label and the age of the melody do not agree. As a traditional Appalachian reel it goes by Salt River, and it has been on record under that name since the Kessinger Brothers cut it for Brunswick in 1929. Scholars who have chased it further back argue for an Irish air behind it. That is a reasonable argument, not a settled fact.

In 1963 Bill Monroe recorded it as Salt Creek, and the label credited him and his banjo player Bill Keith as composers. That was standard industry practice of the era for arrangements of traditional material. The melody is older than either man. One story has Decca choosing the new title because Monroe's previous single had been Big Sandy River and they wanted a different body of water. No paperwork has ever turned up for it, so take it as a tale.

The setting written out here follows the fiddle line the jam books print, the consensus reading a room full of players will land on, and not Monroe's recorded mandolin solo. Call it by either name and everyone will know what you mean. Salt Creek is what you will hear at a bluegrass jam, Salt River at an old-time one.

On a mandolin the A part hammers away at the open A course and builds the tune's two signature moves out of it: the climb through B up to the d at the fifth fret over the D chord, and the bar of G naturals that follows, dipping onto the D string over the G chord. The chromatic D sharp near the end leans into the cadence. It is the one note in the tune that sounds like a decision instead of a scale. The B part hammers the same figure an octave up and reaches higher than any other fiddle tune on this shelf, to the C sharp at the ninth fret of the E string, touched once at the top of each phrase and left right away.