Emmett Lundy

Thanks to John Reddick, the Library Of Congress and Lundy family descendants for making these recordings publically available. Larry Warren

In August 1941 Emmett Lundy was visited at his home in Galax, Virginia and recorded by Alan Lomax, Joseph Liss and Jerry Weisner for the Library of Congress.   Emmett was accompanied on many of the tunes by his sons Kelly Lundy on guitar (and vocals) and Geedy Lundy on banjo.  Emmett was 77 years old at the time and had learned much of his repertoire in his teenage years from Greenberry (“Green”) Leonard who was born before the Civil War.

In 1977, a number of the tunes from the August 1941 recordings, as well as extensive spoken conversations, were released by String Records on the LP titled Emmett W. Lundy - Fiddle Tunes from Grayson County, Virginia (STR802).  The tune recordings posted here were not included in the LP collection.  A few are alternate takes and many are standards that help us fill out our understanding of his fiddling style.   Some tracks are solo fiddle recordings of tunes that were also recorded with accompaniment.

One tune included here, his version of Richmond Cotillion (in the key of G), appears to be unique to him and has not been found recorded elsewhere to our knowledge.   This is a totally different tune, played in the key of G, than the commonly known Richmond Cotillion which is played in the key of D, transitioning to the key of A in the B part.

All of these tunes are played with the fiddle in standard tuning of GDAE.