"Rebels Raid" - Old-Time Fiddle

This version of the well-known Rebels Raid comes from Bill Stepp (1875-1947) of Magoffin County, Kentucky. The slight difference in his version being that he played the low part three times instead of the usual four.

Tuning is GDAE

William H. Stepp (better known as Bill Stepp) was born in Proctor, Lee County, Kentucky, in about 1900 he moved to Lakeville, which was near Salyersville in Magoffin County where he then met John Morgan Salyer (1882-1952) and they became good friends. Stepp often played music with Salyer, at dances and gatherings, and if I'm not mistaken they also competed against each other in contests, though Stepp was into that far more into that than Salyer was. Several tunes that Salyer and Stepp played in common are remarkably similar. Salyer's son Glen once spoke of Stepp, "I liked to hear him play, He was considered a good fiddler, and he was. He loved to entertain people...more than Dad did." Salyer thought that Stepp fiddled too quickly and "cut corners" on the tunes. Both Stepp and Salyer played breakdowns at rapid tempos, but there is no doubt that Stepp played unusually fast. Stepp signed up to make records at some point, but after doing a few records he then found out that the people who were publishing them where profiting from the records far more than Stepp was, He then quit that profession and never made any more records... John Salyer was offered a record contract in 1934, but he didn't fall for it. Stepp later met and was field recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax for the Library of Congress in the late 1930s.
On October 26, 1937, Alan and Lomax wrote to his supervisor at the Library of Congress, Harold Spivacke, that "This afternoon the best fiddler I've heard in Kentucky is coming to play." (He was referring to Stepp)

Here's a link to hear Bill Stepp play this tune
https://www.slippery-hill.com/content...

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