Salt Creek is an old tune with a new name and a famous chord. Bill Monroe cut it for Decca in 1963, and the writer credit on the single reads Bill Monroe and Bradford Keith. The tune is older than both men. West Virginia fiddlers had played it for decades as Salt River.
Where it came from
Salt River is an American reel of uncertain age. The Traditional Tune Archive notes guesses at an Irish source. Historian Charles Wolfe thought it Irish in origin, and researcher Guthrie Meade linked it to an air in P. W. Joyce’s 1909 collection. The tune took root in West Virginia, Virginia, and Texas, with its strongest home in central and southern West Virginia. The Kessinger Brothers, fiddler Clark Kessinger (1896 to 1975) and guitarist Luches Kessinger, cut an influential Salt River in New York on June 25, 1929. The side came out on a 78 with Hot Foot on the flip (Vocalion 5481). Virginia musician Hobart Smith knew the tune too. He called it Pateroller.
Bill Keith brought it into bluegrass. Keith, born December 20, 1939, in Boston, joined Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1963 with a new melodic banjo style that played fiddle tunes note for note. Monroe had another Bill in the band, so he called him Brad. On March 20, 1963, the band met at the Columbia Recording Studio in Nashville with producer Harry Silverstein. Monroe played mandolin, Keith played banjo, Kenny Baker played fiddle, Benny Williams played guitar, and Bessie Lee Mauldin played bass. They cut Salt Creek, Devil’s Dream, and Sailor’s Hornpipe that morning. Decca released Salt Creek on March 9, 1964, as the flip side of Darling Corey (Decca 31596).
Why the new name? The Traditional Tune Archive gives two accounts. In one, Decca feared that Salt River sounded too close to Monroe’s earlier single Big Sandy River and asked for a change. In the other, from fiddler and scholar Alan Jabbour, Monroe named it for the Salt Creek near his festival grounds at Bean Blossom, Indiana. Jabbour also believed Monroe learned the tune from banjo player Don Stover. Keith left the band after about nine months for Air Force Reserve duty. He entered the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2015, the year he died.
How it works
Salt Creek is a reel in cut time with two parts, played AABB. The jam key is A. The hook is the G chord. The tune sits in A major, but the melody leans on G natural, the flat seventh. The chords run A, D, G, and E in the first part, and A, G, D, and E in the second. In Nashville numbers, that is 1, 4, b7, and 5. The Traditional Tune Archive files it under A Major/Mixolydian. That flat seven puts Salt Creek in the same modal family as Old Joe Clark and Red Haired Boy. Learn to hear the G in one of these tunes and you will hear it in all of them.
The tune became a flatpicking test piece. Many guitarists capo at the second fret and play G shapes, the approach Premier Guitar uses to teach breaks by Norman Blake, Tony Rice, David Grier, and Bryan Sutton. Banjo players measure melodic style against Keith’s record. Call it in A at a jam and expect nods. One note on rights: Monroe’s version carries the Monroe and Keith writer credit, so this page describes the tune but does not print tab or notation. For more tunes, see the songbook.
Recordings worth hearing
Start with Monroe’s 1964 Decca single, the version everyone copies. It also sits in the Bear Family box set Bill Monroe Blue Grass 1959-1969, which holds all seven tracks Keith cut with Monroe. Then go back to the source. The Kessinger Brothers’ 1929 Salt River shows the tune before bluegrass, fiddle over guitar. Tony Rice recorded Salt Creek on Guitar in 1973 for the Japanese label Red Clay, with J. D. Crowe on banjo, Larry Rice on mandolin, and Bobby Slone on bass. Flatpickers still study that break. Doc Watson kept the old name. His medley Salt River / Bill Cheatham appears on Foundation: Doc Watson Guitar Instrumental Collection 1964-1998, released in 2000. Norman Blake and Tony Rice played the tune together on film, and David Grier and Bryan Sutton each have filmed versions of their own. Hobart Smith’s Pateroller preserves an older mountain take under another name.
Sources
Facts on this page come from the Traditional Tune Archive entries for Salt Creek and Salt River, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame biography of Bill Keith, Praguefrank’s Bill Monroe session discography, the ibiblio bluegrass discography entry for Decca 31596, the Discogs listing for the Kessinger Brothers’ Salt River, the Pickers Guide page on Salt Creek, Premier Guitar’s Salt Creek lesson, Bluegrass Today on the Bear Family set, and Apple Music’s listing of Doc Watson’s Salt River / Bill Cheatham.