Clyde Davenport (1921-2020) is likely one of the best known Old Time fiddlers. He was an important connection for passing on many Old Time tunes from south central Kentucky and the Cumberland plateau area. Starting in the 1970’s he welcomed folklorists, researchers, and players to share his musical knowledge. Many of the tunes in his repertoire of original and regional tunes have since become Old Time “standards”, such as Callahan, Five Miles From Town, Flatwoods, Jenny In The Cotton Patch, Liza Jane, and Roses In The Morning. There has been much written about him, and a good place to start is the bio from his 1992 National Endowment For The Arts Fellowship (excerpt):

Clyde Davenport was born October 21, 1921, in Mount Pisgah, in south-central Kentucky. He was raised in the Blue Hollow area of Wayne County in the Cumberland Plateau region. When he was nine, Davenport made his own fiddle from barn boards, using hair from his family's mule for bowstrings. At 11, he made his first banjo, which he taught himself to play.

In his mid teens, Davenport first heard the music of the widely admired fiddle and banjo duo of Blind Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford, perhaps the greatest single musical influence of his life. His attraction to Rutherford's flawless technique led him eventually to make the fiddle his instrument of choice, though he is also widely recognized for his old-time clawhammer banjo playing. (see more on Burnett and Rutherford here)

The traditional fiddling style of this region is solo, and often the fiddle is cross-keyed. Unlike many of his fellow old-time master fiddlers, Davenport is not a contest fiddler. In his musical memory he kept more than 200 fiddle tunes, many of which are rare tunes learned from his father, grandfather, and fiddling neighbors of earlier generations.

Through his appearances at festivals, concerts, school programs, workshops, and music camps, Davenport has enlightened thousands to the subtleties of old-time music. His belief that the music he learned from his father and neighbors is good and should be played with excellence has inspired him to share his music with anyone interested in learning. Complete NEA page here.

Professor of Ethnomusicology Jeff Titon spent about 4 months with Davenport in 1990 learning and documenting his fiddling and views on life and music. Here are some excerpts from Titon’s Brown University’s library page: 

About Clyde’s Repertoire: Jeff: Now your daddy didn't show you how to play?

Clyde: Nobody ever showed me anything or I never listened to nothing to learn how to play anything.

Jeff: But you must have got your tunes from somewhere.

Clyde: Just like I said, I could hear a tune, hear a man play a tune, and I'd have it. I didn't want to hear it no more. It just stayed with me, you see. 

The Difference Between Old Time Fiddling and Bluegrass/Country: Jeff: What's the difference between Old Time fiddling and, well, some other kind of fiddling?

Clyde: Well, there's a lot of difference between it and bluegrass. Bluegrass fiddlers, they don't play nothing. They just run around over it. They don't play a tune. The old-time fiddlers play the tune. And them old time fiddlers around through this part of the country could play a fiddle. And I used to be, I could play one.

Jeff: What do you mean, they run around it?

Clyde: Well, just kindly chord around, you know, run around over it. They don't play a tune. Many of them. Now, Bill Monroe mostly plays the tune, you know. Of course it's not a fiddle tune.

Jeff: What do you mean, it's not a fiddle tune?

Clyde: Well, it's just a song, you know. But he's about the only one you'll hear do that.

Jeff: Kenny Baker and the fiddle players who play for Bill Monroe?

Clyde: Mm.

Jeff: What about fiddling in country music?

Clyde: No difference. I don't like country music.

Jeff: Why not?

Clyde: Just don't like it.

Jeff: You must have your reasons.

Clyde: Well, I have. There's just nothing to it. I don't call it music. Just a big racket. A bunch of old guitars a-beating and a-thrashing. Not music.

Playing In Different Keys: Jeff: What about the different keys that you play in? Do they have a different kind of quality to them?

Clyde: Well, they're different keys, right smart. A's a high key and D is a low key, E is a low key, Bb is a low key, and C, did I call C? They's a difference. D is sort of in between; G key is a like a standard.

Jeff: I notice you play a lot of tunes in G.

Clyde: Well, that's where I always heard them played. The old people didn't know one key from the other. They could play in G [but] they didn't know what they was playing in. They could play in C, and they didn't know what they was playing in; they could play in D and didn't know what they was playing in. That's the three keys they played in. Mostly all was played in G.

Jeff: What about. did they retune the fiddle?

Clyde: Yeah, they cross-keyed their fiddles.

Jeff: A lot?

Clyde: Yeah, now, some of them I never did hear do that. Leonard Rutherford, I never did hear him cross-key his'n.

About Sharing His Tunes: Jeff: I got another subject, and that is how do you feel about all the attention that you've been getting since Charles Wolfe came around and recorded you and W. L. Gregory, and now that fiddlers are stopping by.

Clyde: It's just like it was before it ever happened. I think nothing about it. Never did go to my head. Anybody comes here who wants my music can get it. You go other places, they don't want to give it to you. I think nothing of it. It makes me no difference.

Jeff: Are you glad that people are coming by?

Clyde: Yeah. I like company. Yeah, I'm glad people come.

Jeff Titon's Book: "Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes"