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"Soldier's Joy" by John Morris (2020)

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John Morris of Clay county discusses learning the fiddle tune "Soldier's Joy" from Wilson Douglas and then plays the tune.

John Morris: We stopped to visit, and we went over to Wilson Douglas' home there, and that was the first time I remember seeing him. The tune that I remember that they tried to play was "A Soldier's Joy." That was one of the first tunes that I tried to learn to play. Wilson played that tune for a long, long time. That was the first tune he would play when he picked up the fiddle, wherever he was at. Years later, when my brother and I, David Morris, we became the Morris Brothers, and we had bands and done shows, and that tune served as our theme song for many years. That was the first tune that we played on the shows, and we played that on television shows and shooting galleries and wherever we played. Draw me into shooting galleries in the wrong places. I've been through four major floods and mine war and several shooting galleries. I've played in front of crowds where a thousand people who adored me, and I've left several places with a gun in my hand. And I'm still here in one piece. But "A Soldier's Joy" been one of my favorite tunes. I'll start out playing it the way I first learned it, and then I'll put some things in it that I put in it down through the years.

[fiddle tune "Soldier's Joy]

From the West Virginia Folklife Program
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