I have an old copy of Miles Krassen's Appalachian Fiddle book and play some of the fiddle-tune versions in there on the mandolin occasionally. My favorites are of course the tunes in the "Modal Tunes" chapter like June Apple and so forth.

The version of Yew Piney Mountain he transcribes is French Carpenter's and he says Carpenter played it in AEAE tuning. I'm choosing a couple tunes to play in my mandolin teacher's student recital and thought about doing that tune along with probably Lonesome John (Sam Kelly) or maybe West Virginia Girls (Alan Jabbour/Henry Reed) instead. Either of those also seems to work with AEAE although that's not indicated as being how the guys he transcribed tuned for it.

Is that a common tuning to use for these "A Modal" tunes? I think Lonesome John is killer no matter what the tuning but I can't play West Virginia Girls well enough (yet!) to know if it works better in standard tuning or what. You don't really know how much the drones add until you get it up to speed or pretty close.