Fly Around My Blue Eyed Girl- Taylor (KY) 1989
[Digital Appalachia: http://dla.acaweb.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/berea/id/4984/rec/17
R. Matteson 2018]
Description: Song played by Ballard "Pappy" Taylor and Tommy Taylor at the Berea College Celebration of Traditional Music on 10-28-89
Bio- Ballard “Pappy” Taylor (1908-1998), a 1920s-1960s radio personality, helped popularize mountain music and folk songs, or “hillbilly music” as it was known at the time. After leaving Adair County for Covington, Ky. in 1928 hoping for work in the music industry, Taylor’s first radio spot was on Sunday nights through Cincinnati’s WLW – the first station to make 50,000 watts and reaching a national audience.
Taylor played throughout the south during his career with bands like “The Carolina Troubadour,” “Uncle Henry's Original Kentucky Mountaineers,” and “The Blue Ridge Mountain Boys.
” During a 1940s radio broadcast with “Uncle Henry’s Original Kentucky Mountaineers,” Taylor played the part of “Grandpappy Nerit,” a cantankerous old man character which stuck with him through a 1951 six-week Grand Ole Opry tour.Taylor officially retired in 1965 to his home in Covington, Ky., but continued to play old-time music and has often been honored for his contribution to country and hillbilly music.
Oral history interviews with Ballard “Pappy” Taylor and Kentucky musicians can be found at http://passtheword.ky.gov.
Fly Around My Blue Eyed Girl- played and sung by Ballard “Pappy” Taylor with Tommy Taylor guitar, 1989
[instrumental fiddle]
Fly around my blue-eyed girl,
Fly around my daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed girl
You almost drive me crazy.
Jaybird and a sparrow
They had a fight together.
Fought around the big black stump,
And never lost a feather. [chorus]
[verse unintelligible, didn't sing in mic]
The taller grows the cherry tree,
The riper gets the berries,
The more you court them pretty little girls,
The sooner you'll marry. [chorus]