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 **Benton's Dream** is an American [old-time](/old-time-music) fiddle tune in [A Mixolydian](/a-mixolydian), composed in the 1960s by North Carolina fiddler [Benton Flippen](/benton-flippen) (1920–2011). It is structured as a reel in two parts (AA'BB') and played in standard fiddle tuning. The tune has become a standard at old-time gatherings, particularly within the [Round Peak](/round-peak) tradition centered on [Surry County, North Carolina](/surry-county-north-carolina), and has also crossed over into Irish folk repertoires through its 1988 recording by the Dublin-based group [Patrick Street](/patrick-street).[@tunearch-bentons-dream][@musicmaker-finley-2015][@patrick-street-no2-discogs]
 
-According to a note attributed to fiddle collector Susan Songer in *The Traditional Tune Archive*, Flippen composed the tune while "just fooling around on the fiddle" at the home of his Mt. Airy neighbor, fiddler [Tommy Jarrell](/tommy-jarrell). Jarrell remarked that it was a good tune and gave it the name "Benton's Dream."[@tunearch-bentons-dream]
+According to a note attributed to fiddle collector Susan Songer in *The Traditional Tune Archive*, Flippen composed the tune while "just fooling around on the fiddle" at the home of his Mt. Airy neighbor, fiddler [Tommy Jarrell](/tommy-jarrell). Jarrell remarked that it was a good tune and gave it the name "Benton's Dream."[@tunearch-bentons-dream:composition-story]
 
 ## Origin
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 James Benton Flippen, born July 18, 1920, in Surry County, North Carolina, was associated with the generation of Round Peak fiddlers that included Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, and Earnest East.[@blueridge-flippen][@musicmaker-flippen-artist] He composed several tunes that entered the broader old-time repertoire — including "Fiddler's Reel," "Sally in the Turnip Patch," and "Smokey Valley Breakdown" — of which "Benton's Dream" is the most widely played today.[@blueridge-flippen][@musicmaker-finley-2015]
 
-The tune emerged informally during a visit to Tommy Jarrell's house at some point in the 1960s. Jarrell's role in naming the piece reflects the close-knit social context in which Round Peak tunes typically circulated and acquired titles.[@tunearch-bentons-dream]
+The tune emerged informally during a visit to Tommy Jarrell's house at some point in the 1960s. Jarrell's role in naming the piece reflects the close-knit social context in which Round Peak tunes typically circulated and acquired titles.[@tunearch-bentons-dream:composition-story]
 
 ## Musical features
FROM AGPEDIA — AGENCY THROUGH KNOWLEDGE

Benton's Dream

Benton's Dream is an American old-time fiddle tune in A Mixolydian, composed in the 1960s by North Carolina fiddler Benton Flippen (1920–2011). It is structured as a reel in two parts (AA'BB') and played in standard fiddle tuning.[1:1] The tune has become a standard at old-time gatherings, particularly within the Round Peak tradition centered on Surry County, North Carolina, and has also crossed over into Irish folk repertoires through its 1988 recording by the Dublin-based group Patrick Street.[2][3:1]

According to a note attributed to fiddle collector Susan Songer in The Traditional Tune Archive, Flippen composed the tune while "just fooling around on the fiddle" at the home of his Mt. Airy neighbor, fiddler Tommy Jarrell. Jarrell remarked that it was a good tune and gave it the name "Benton's Dream."[1:2]

Origin

James Benton Flippen, born July 18, 1920, in Surry County, North Carolina, was associated with the generation of Round Peak fiddlers that included Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, and Earnest East.[4][5] He composed several tunes that entered the broader old-time repertoire — including "Fiddler's Reel," "Sally in the Turnip Patch," and "Smokey Valley Breakdown" — of which "Benton's Dream" is the most widely played today.[4][2]

The tune emerged informally during a visit to Tommy Jarrell's house at some point in the 1960s. Jarrell's role in naming the piece reflects the close-knit social context in which Round Peak tunes typically circulated and acquired titles.[1:2]

Musical features

"Benton's Dream" is a reel in A Mixolydian, played in standard GDAE fiddle tuning.[1:1][6] In Mary Gordon's 2018 transcription, included in The Traditional Tune Archive, the tune is written with three sharps to retain an "A flavor," though the seventh degree (G) is played natural and the third (C♯) is played somewhat flat — producing the modal, slightly bluesy character typical of Round Peak fiddling.[1:3]

The tune is in two parts, each repeated with variation (AA'BB'). The A part centers on A and the B part dips into G before returning to the tonic.[1:1] In the Music Maker Foundation's column on the tune, Jed Finley described it as capturing "the ups and downs that one experiences during a dream," alternating between uplifting and darker tonal moods.[2:1]

Flippen's own performance was distinguished by his unusual three-finger fretting technique and a heavily shuffled bow; his renditions incorporate the slides and brief drones characteristic of his playing.[5]

Recording and publication history

Flippen recorded "Benton's Dream" with his band the Smokey Valley Boys for Rounder Records in 1973.[1] The tune was later notated and published in two influential reference collections of American fiddle tunes — Stacy Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Volume 1 (1994) and Susan Songer's The Portland Collection (1997) — with both transcriptions reportedly drawn from Flippen's playing.[1]

The tune crossed into Celtic and Irish folk repertoires when it was recorded by Patrick Street, a Dublin-based group whose original lineup featured fiddler Kevin Burke, bouzouki player and singer Andy Irvine, accordionist Jackie Daly, and guitarist Ged Foley. The group included it on their 1988 album No. 2 Patrick Street (Green Linnet Records), as the second half of a medley track titled "Benton's Jig / Benton's Dream."[3:1]

Benton's Jig

A jig titled "Benton's Jig" is paired with "Benton's Dream" on Patrick Street's 1988 album No. 2 Patrick Street, where the two appear as a single combined track.[3:1] Like the Flippen tune, it is in A Mixolydian. The crowdsourced tune database The Session lists a 6/8 jig in A Mixolydian under the title "Benton's," which has been entered in twelve user tunebooks and credited to two recordings.[7] The jig's compositional history is not well documented in the sources surveyed for this article, and whether it was named in association with Flippen's reel or arose independently is not established.

Tunes paired in old-time medleys

In old-time jam settings, "Benton's Dream" is often played in medleys with other A-modal tunes — most commonly John Brown's Dream and "Greasy Coat."[8] "John Brown's Dream" is an older tune from the broader Blue Ridge tradition and belongs to a large family of related melodies that includes "Brown's Dream," "Pretty Little Miss," "Stillhouse Branch," and others; it is unrelated to Flippen's composition by anything other than its key, A, and the shared word "Dream" in its title.[9:1]

Other Flippen compositions

Alongside "Benton's Dream," Flippen composed "Fiddler's Reel," "Sally in the Turnip Patch," and "Smokey Valley Breakdown," though "Benton's Dream" is the most widely played of his tunes in jam settings today.[4][2]

Legacy

"Benton's Dream" has entered the standard repertoire of old-time string bands. The Music Maker Foundation, which provided support to Flippen in his later years, has reported that the tune is now a standard heard at most old-time conventions, and that it is regularly played in the campground sessions of the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention as part of Flippen's continuing legacy.[5:1]

  1. ^a ^b ^c ↗ musical-classification ^a ^b ↗ composition-story ^ ↗ notation-flat-third ^a ^b Annotation: Benton’s Dream. The Traditional Tune Archive. https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Benton%27s_Dream.
  2. ^ ↗ dream-mood-description ^a ^b ^c Finley, Jed (2015-03-19). Diggin’: Benton Flippen — Benton’s Dream. Music Maker Foundation. https://archive.musicmaker.org/diggin-benton-flippen-bentons-dream/.
  3. ^a ^b ^c ↗ no2-track-listing Patrick Street (1988). No. 2 Patrick Street (album release listing). Discogs. Green Linnet Records. https://www.discogs.com/release/4402417-Patrick-Street-No-2-Patrick-Street.
  4. ^a ^b ^c Benton Flippen. Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. https://www.blueridgeheritage.com/artist/benton-flippen/.
  5. ^ ↗ standard-at-conventions ^a ^b Benton Flippen. Music Maker Foundation. https://www.musicmaker.org/artist/benton-flippen/.
  6. ^ Benton’s Dream, Part 1 (Old-Time Fiddle lesson). Peghead Nation. https://www.pegheadnation.com/string-school/courses/old-time-fiddle/bentons-dream-part-1/.
  7. ^ Benton’s (jig). The Session. https://thesession.org/tunes/3506.
  8. ^ Benton’s Dream. Old Time Frederick. https://sites.google.com/view/old-time-frederick/tunes-abcd/bentons-dream.
  9. ^ ↗ tune-family Annotation: John Brown’s Dream. The Traditional Tune Archive. https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:John_Brown%27s_Dream.
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