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Old-Time TOTW

This week's tune is Hell and Scissors from the playing of Kentucky fiddler James William "Jilson Setters" Day (13 May 1861--6 May 1942). He was the son of Jilson Lewis Day (1836-1918) and Mary Elizabeth Setters (1844-1919). His ancestor John Cogswell Jr (on his Day side) was born in Wiltshire, England, and was in Ipswich, MA, by 1642. James Day married Mary Ellen Wireman (1869-1929). Source for above Ancestry and public documents. Day was a self-taught, left handed fiddler who performed locally for dances and social events. His vision was impaired from youth, and he often performed under the name "Blind Bill Day." He occasionally supported himself by begging. He had surgery to correct his sight in 1906, but still used the stage name "Blind Bill Day." He was discovered in 1926 by folklorist Jean Bell Thomas. She was fascinated with the thought that American folk musicians had stylistic features that had been passed down since the 16th and 17th centuries, and she used that concept to create interest in the music with the general public. Thomas became Day's manager and promoted him under a persona that was almost entirely fictional. She presented him as a man who spent his life in the mountains, one who never came in contact with the modern world, and one who still retained vestiges of his English ancestry. Her first suggestion was having him change his name to Jilson Setters. Note that this name is a combination of his deceased parents names: his father's first name and his mother's maiden name. Thomas fabricated a story that "Jilson Setters" was blind from birth, lived in isolation in the mountains, and had gained his eyesight only recently due to a procedure that Thomas financed. With his "new" ability to see, Setters was shocked by the appearance of the civilized world. As Jilson Setters, Day recorded ten sides for RCA Records in New York City in 1928. Thomas published a heavily fictionalized article in 1930 in the publication American Magazine titled "Blind Jilson: Singin' Fiddler of Lost Hope Hollow." (this was expanded and published as a book in 1938). Lost Hope Hollow was a place Thomas fabricated. In the article, she stated, “Jilson Setters, whose Elizabethan ballads broadcast over a hook-up from coast to coast and relayed half way around the world, delighted millions last night…Jilson Setters is a modern survival of the ancient minstrel. Who knows but that his primitive tunes have paved the way for American grand opera.” Setters sang ballads and played the fiddle. The next year, Ms. Thomas organized a tour for Setters to play in London, England, where he performed for King George V as well as at a folk song festival at Albert Hall. By 1934, Setters had become the featured performer at the National Song Festival organized by Thomas under the umbrella of her American Folk Song Society. Included on its board Carl Sandberg and Ida M. Tarbell. Setters also recorded in the 1930s for John Lomax, and those recordings are now in the Library of Congress. Thomas had first asked Ed Haley (also a Kentucky fiddler) to take on the persona of this mountain musician character she was creating. Haley refused, and she then turned to Day. Her character seemed to highlight stereotypes and fabricated ignorance of rural people which many people at the time found oddly "charming." An interest in "Early American" things was sweeping the country in the decorative arts and collecting world. It really didn't matter that the things claimed to be "Early American" really were not. It all conjured up a "homey" image in people's minds. Thomas seemed to capitalize on this trend. Sources for much of the above information: Wikipedia The Singin’ Fiddler of Lost Hope Hollow, a persona, posted by Dave Tabler Constructing Country: Fakery and “Strictly American” Music, Kevin Yuill Old-time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes, Jeff Todd Titon Creating Country Music, Richard A. Peterson Big Sandy, Jean Thomas Time magazine, Traipsin’ Woman, Monday, June 18, 1934 Steve Green on Jilson Setters thread at Ancestry.com— http://boards.ancestry.com/localities... A hell is an archaic term for a leather holster used by tailors. More information about the tune at: https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:... Joining me are friends Stephen Rapp on banjo (Kent, OH) and Sean Fen on guitar (Wooster, OH). Join my Patreon at:   / paulkirk   Subscribe to my YouTube channel, and be sure to click the bell icon to receive notifications, and don't forget to join the Old-Time TOTW group on Facebook at:   / 33100.  . I will be teaching this tune at a remote workshop for Black Creek Fiddler's Reunion on Sat May 29 at 2pm. FiddlerPaul71@gmail.com for information. Register at https://blackcreek.oldsongs.org/