Chiff and Fipple Forums

Thanks, that's good information, people. Another tune that crossed the Atlantic is Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy. The original version is an Irish tune know as The Jaunting Irish Car (I think). The Irish Brigade put their own words to it. For that matter, Marching through Georgia, a tune often played by Sherman's men as they tore through the South has an Irish version as well. Whiskey in the Jar has an Irish Brigade version too, which I really like.

Tyler, Google David Wilke and Cowboy Celtic for more examples...Dave researched the connection between the Cowboy world and Irish and Scottish music. He created a new sound...our harpist did her masters in ethnomusicology on the band...one prime example is the famous Cowboy song "The Streets of Laredo" that came from the 1600's Ireland and was originally called "The Bard of Armagh" Michael Martin Murphey sang it on our Wrangler awarded album for outstanding album of the year for 1999... Arthur Cormac also sang a track that was the last known Cowboy song written in gaelic, in Montana...countless examples on the 7 albums we released if you are curious.

Peter Kennedy once did an interview with Scan Tester (the Sussex concertina player), and Scan's numbering of tunes (No. 1 step dance etc) came up. He explained that when he was invited to play at Cecil Sharpe House (headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society - EFDSS) he was asked what the names of the tunes were. This was at the end of the 1950's I think. Anyway, he couldn't remember the names (or never knew them, or maybe had no reason to know them), so he said that he hit upon the idea of numbering them. The only problem was that next time he was there, he couldn't remember which number he'd given to which tune so confusion has reigned ever since

I play a tune that for a while I thought was called the "Wiltshire Six Hand Reel." Then I heard the "Wiltshire Six Hand Reel", and realised that it wasn't. I then took to calling it "Not the Wiltshire Six Hand Reel" for want of anything to identify it, and the name has been learnt by band members and session goers. A kind soul once told me the "actual" name of the tune, but I cannot for the life of me remember it, so it goes on in life as "Not the Wiltshire Six Hand Reel", which is of course now its real reel name

Tyler DelGregg wrote: Another tune that crossed the Atlantic is Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy. The original version is an Irish tune know as The Jaunting Irish Car (I think). The Irish Brigade put their own words to it. For that matter, Marching through Georgia, a tune often played by Sherman's men as they tore through the South has an Irish version as well. Whiskey in the Jar has an Irish Brigade version too, which I really like.

That's a very interesting subject, tracing American folk-songs back to their roots in other countries.

One can trace the same song (the words, the text) from America to various English, Scottish, and Irish versions. The melody will sometimes be similar, but oftentimes a song acquires an entirely different melody at some point.

It's fascinating to trace some of the Child ballads, like the one that first appears as Locke Hospital in Scotland and spread and evolved in various countries and regions to become songs as diverse as Saint James Infirmary and Streets Of Laredo.

The same melody will show up as an instrumental piece with different titles, and as the tune for various sets of words.

One example is the tune of an Irish jig that was used as the melody for The Yellow Rose Of Texas.

The famous West Virginia fiddler Edden Hammons (b 1875) played an instrumental tune he called Queen Of The Earth And Child Of The Skies which is a version of the Irish tune The Blackbird. (Well, one of them, there are various Irish tunes with that name.)