Cripple Creek

Cripple Creek is a folk song in the Appalachian tradition, using harmony, fiddle, and piano (in the style of a strumming guitar or banjo). As with most folk music, the origins of the song are uncertain. Some attribute the location of the song to the discovery of gold in Cripple Creek, Colorado in the late 19th Century. Others attribute it to labor disputes in the same area in the early 20th Century. There is a Cripple Creek that flows through Southwest Virginia, and a town in North Carolina named Cripple Creek. Whatever its inspiration, the music is clearly in the Southern mountain tradition.