Dusty Miller

by Joe Carr

This version of the great Texas fiddle warhorse comes from the Mel Bay book “Texas
Fiddle Favorites for Mandolin.” 98404BCD. The music CD was recorded as a Joe Carr
and Alan Munde mandolin/banjo project in the 1990s and is well worth listening to as a
music CD alone. This book includes some of the most difficult and satisfying mandolin
music I ever recorded. If you like Sam Bush’s Texas fiddle style infused mandolin style,
you’ll love this book/CD.

The album was born out of our mutual love of this fiddle music. Alan cut his musical
teeth around great fiddlers all over the Southwest and he is known for his accurate
representation of contest style fiddle tunes on the 5 string banjo. I began studying the
style as a beginning fiddler and eventually studied with the great Jim “Texas Shorty”
Chancellor as part of a Texas Folklife Heritage grant. I applied many of the Texas style
arrangements I learned here to the mandolin with satisfying results.

Shortly after Alan and I were hired as Bluegrass music instructors at South Plains
College in Levelland, Texas, we began recording an album of 12 “Texas Fiddle
Favorites.” These included tunes that were often overlooked by bluegrass musicians or
were generally played in a more simple style than the Texas arrangements. The notes we
played came largely from transcriptions we had collected of great fiddlers including
Benny Thomasson, Texas Shorty, Vernon Solomon and others. These transcriptions
provided by Slim Richey, ourselves, and others, gave the project an air of authenticity.
When finished, we pitched the album to our then label. Flying fish/ Rounder, who
declined the project.

Stuck with a great album (we thought it was) and no producer, we decided to present it
to Mel Bay Publishing as a book of transcriptions with CD. Until now, buyers of this
project were unaware of the history of the music. Mel Bay Publishing made it available
as two books for mandolin and banjo. The same CD appears in both books.

Dusty Miller as evidenced by Bill Monroe’s recording is played by bluegrassers as a

simple AABB fiddle tune. Texas fiddlers have “fleshed out” the tune creating many sub
themes, some of which even require different chord progressions.

The version below contains the first 32 measures of the attached mp3. The first 8 bars
are the main theme followed another 8 with variations. The variations come in measures
9 and 13. The B section begins in measure 17 followed by variations in measures 25 and
29. The “bow rocking” figure in measure 21 requires a first finger barre over the fourth
and third strings. The transcription in the book includes music for the entire performance.
 Dusty Miller

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6

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2 6

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9

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0 2 4 5 2 0 0 2 3 0 3 0 5 4 7 5 2 0
0 2 4 4 5 4 2 0 2 0
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6

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13

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2 4 5 2 0 0 2 3 2 3 5 7 3 5 3 0 5 4 7 5 2 0
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2 0 0 0
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4 2 2 0 2 4 0 5420 5 2 6 2 6
2 6