Cripple Creek (folk song)


"Cripple Creek" is an Appalachian-style folk song, often in old time arrangement for the fiddle, although it is played on stringed instruments such as the banjo. It has become a standard among bluegrass musicians and is often one of the first songs a banjo picker learns. No one knows exactly when it was composed, but there are theories about just where Cripple Creek is. Some say it is Cripple Creek, Virginia, while others say it is based on Cripple Creek, Colorado during the gold rush. It was frequently recorded by early country musicians in the 1920s.

Score

Simplified version of the basic melody.

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Lyrics

The following are lyrics from a 1909 version included in the Journal of American Folklore, 1915.
When Cecil Sharp collected folksongs in the Appalachian Mountains in 1917 he found one version of "Cripple Creek":