I’ve been playing hookey — just didn’t feel like writing much. Now that I want to get started again I thought I’d post some more music. This may be my favorite fiddle tune. I hear it slow and sentimental, unlike the famous western swing treatments by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

Bob Wills didn’t write Maiden’s Prayer, only some sentimental words for it. Frankie McWhorter quotes Wills in Cowboy Fiddler in Bob Wills’ Band telling the story of how Wills locked himself up with a Mexican fiddle player in Roy, New Mexico, where he was working as a barber.

Bob said, “He played ‘The Spanish Two-Step’ and I locked the door where he couldn’t get out and nobody else could get in, and I made him stay there until he taught me that and ‘Maiden’s Prayer.’ Finally he nodded. I didn’t know whether he needed to go to the bathroom or if I was doing it right, but I let him out.” That Mexican taught him those two tunes.

Here’s a lovely performance featuring Aly Bain and Jay Ungar. Ungar is more famous as the composer of “Ashokan Farewell,” which was used as the theme song of Ken Burns’ Civil War series.

YouTube programs another fine performance (though the photography is less than stellar), featuring Al Joseph with Jerry Vernon and Acie Cargill on guitars. I love it, and I don’t know what’s more remarkable, the fact that it’s “live at McDonald’s” or the shots of the geezers dancing.