Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal-maybe just a fiddle tune

Subject: Kitchen Gal
From: GUEST,Cookie
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 10:48 PM

Can anyone help me with this request?

I'm a bluegrass fiddler looking for the words to a tune I know as "Kitchen Gal" which may be of Irish origin. May also be known as "Kitchen Girl" or "Kitchen Maid"(?)

Thanks, Cookie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal
From: Susan A-R
Date: 07 Jul 01 - 11:18 PM

Wow! Lyrics? I'm waiting folks. I want these.

Susan A-R

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal
From: Gypsy
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:09 AM

Me too, me too! Group plays it when i make the midnight supper at session

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 07:25 AM

I know the tune too, and never thought it had lyrics. In my opinion, it would be very hard to sing anything to that tune, especially at the speed most folks play it!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 08:25 AM

I agree with Jeri. I don't think there are lyrics to Kitchen Girl.

Miss Bonnie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:04 AM

Kitchen Girl came from the repertoire of Henry Reed, and was subsequently popularised by the fiddler and folklorist Alan Jabbour; there are two recordings and a transcription of Reed playing it at  Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection:

Kitchen Girl

The editors comment:

"Kitchen Girl is a striking tune, but though other tunes can be found with a general resemblance, no clear variant has been found.  It was recorded by the Hollow Rock String Band (Kanawha 311) in a version learned from Henry Reed, and from there the tune has found its way into the repertories of other fiddlers."

The Fiddler's Companion  gives some additional information, and comments, "Reed's tune has become so wide-spread it is sometimes played in Europe as a representative American old-time tune."

The tune was discussed on the  FIDDLE-L  discussion list back in May 1999, and a suggestion that the tune had any identifiable "Celtic" roots was pretty solidly dismissed on the evidence available.  Fiddlin' Bill Hicks of the Red Clay Ramblers commented on the tune's progress from Henry Reed (the only known traditional source) to its current widespread state and added, "...a "kitchen girl" was often a term used for a slave girl who worked in the kitchen."

There does seem on the face of it no more reason to give the tune an Irish, than for example, a Swedish or Norwegian pedigree; indeed, on stylistic grounds I'd suggest a Scandinavian origin might be more likely, though it could equally well be home-grown American; but then, Old Time isn't my field.  No suggestion of any lyric traditionally associated with the tune.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:35 AM

Anyone for "Over the Waterfall"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Kitchen Gal-maybe just a fiddle tune
From: GUEST,#
Date: 27 Mar 21 - 02:21 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2V0k-wvvU

It has words, but I don't know if it answers the OP's request.