About This Song

Belle Of Lexington is a traditional fiddle tune from Grayson County in southwestern Virginia. It started out across the ocean as "Kitty's Wedding," an Irish hornpipe that turns up in O'Neill's Music of Ireland. In the mountains it sped up into a breakdown and took on an American name. The tune is also related to "Smith's Reel," and John Patterson called it "Belle Election."

Nearly everyone who plays it today traces it to one fiddler, Emmett Lundy (1864-1953). Alan and Elizabeth Lomax recorded him for the Library of Congress in 1941, and he called the tune "Belles of Lexington." Lundy's version strays a long way from the Irish melody. Folklorists point to his mid-bow accents and slurred bowings as signs of how Southern fiddlers made tunes their own. Players like Bruce Molsky and Kirk Sutphin learned their versions from Lundy's recording.