Soldier’s Joy has been one of the most commonly performed fiddle tunes for generations. This transcription is based on a performance that Marion Underwood and Sam Harris recorded for the Gennett Company in Richmond, Indiana, on April 26, 1927.
Their performance is slightly unusual in that it reverses the usual order of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ strains, with the frenetic higher variation coming first. This transcription, however, reflects the more traditional ordering of the strains.
Soldier’s Joy
The proper name is Soldier Joy, not Soldiers. Taylors Kentucky Boys was a fictional group. Particularly in the April 1927 recordings, it was used only for some of the instrumental tunes for musicians that Dennis Taylor brought to Gennett Records in April and August 1927. Any tune with a vocal, even the just one verse shouted here, was attributed to the vocalist.
The fiddler here is the Black Joe Booker Jr. The session was probably planned to be with Doc Roberts. However, Roberts had come to believe he was being exploited by Taylor who got the lion share of payments from Gennett records for Roberts and other musicians he brought to Indiana to record with Gennett. Taylors was reputed to be making about 1000 1927 bucks for each session her organied with Gennett. He brought more than 100 different artists he brought to the Gennett studios in Indiana in the mid 1920s, both old time and Black blues musicians. Roberts was his biggest seller. When Roberts complained to Gennett they told him that Taylors had a contract and he ought to work things out. Gennett told him if he was worried about money Gennett did not mind if Roberts went to other record companies and made records as long as he did not use the name Doc Roberts. When the April 27 session this was made in took place Roberts was in Chicago with two other local Kentucky musicians making records for Paramount and a couple other companies. Taylor organized the musicians for these session by gathering them at his house in KY, and having his wife who was musically educated and could play the piano, and him organize practices so they would be efficient in the Gennett studio Taylor probably was left in the lurch with Roberts whose farm adjoined Taylor’s tobacco farm in KY, was not back in KY to practice for the scheduled April recording session, Jim Booker was probably a local fiddler Taylor could obtain to go up there on an emergency basis. He seems to have had a tight bond with Marion Underwood as shown in their performances of Gray Eagle and Forked deer where the lead goes back and forth between Booker’s fiddle and Underwoods banjo in a way similar to African American string bands like the Gribble, Lusk, York band Stu Jamieson recorded in Tennessee in 1946. He proved so successful that for the August recordings that Roberts had come to perform on, Taylor brought not only Jim Booker Jr (often confused with his father THE JIM BOOKER who died in 1903, but his brothers Joe and John Booker who performed on several of the August recordings and who also each accompanied Roberts on several of the fiddle tunes he recorded in that session on guitar.