Old Cheat Mountain - Israel Welch

Here’s a bit of Israel Welch’s “Old Cheat Mountain” ‘round about the key of “D”. The sound quality in this video sounds like 78’s Joe Bussard made of the Welch Brothers.

Israel Welch was one of the old-time fiddlers from my home area, the Eastern Panhandle of WV. Israel and his Brother Tom played the New Creek Square Dance each week, which by many was considered one of the best running square dances in the state. I believe Israel said he played that dance for over 60 years.

Unfortunately, the old-time musicians from the Eastern Panhandle weren’t as well documented as they were in the rest of the state. I have a project coming up hoping to remedy that. Im dedicating the next few years to collecting copies of field recordings of old time fiddlers from the eastern panhandle, learn all their tunes ( in each fiddlers style) and pass them on.

I’m going to focus on Israel for the first part of this project, because his fiddling has problem had the biggest influence on the old-time style in the eastern panhandle.