Periodically, we practice at Villa Park in Roseville, so it was nice that we were able to thank the residents for sharing their space with a performance.
Here is the setlist and Jonathan’s interpretation notes.
- Polkas
- Ten Pound Snowflake: The first contra dance Rick Mohr ever wrote (1983). He notes on his webpage that the dance style was… exhuberant… reflecting optimistic expectations from a 25-year-old artist of his audience. The Snowflake refers both to challenging dance step and Brian Humphrey’s “The Ten Pound Fiddle” about lugging one’s instrument to perform after a heavy Minnesota snowstorm.
- Mairi’s Wedding: This tune from the Hebrides Islands was written to commemorate Mary MacNiven winning the National Mòd, a Gaelic singing competition in 1934. It’s commonly used in Scottish children’s music lessons. Van Morrison popularized it with the Chieftains.
- Hornpipes: Hornpipes are a syncopated dance from the 16th-century British and Irish islands. The popular story is that British navy used them as calesthetic exercise for sailors.
- Off to California:
- Boys of Bluehill:
- Harvest Home:
- Inisheer: 2014, Thomas Walsh, accordian player. Inisheer is the smallest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, off the West Coast. Travelers come to learn Irish, which is still used by the 300 residents.
- Reels
- Silver Spear: Perhaps named after a mountain , there are lots of variations of this reel with different titles.
- Gravel Walks: County Donegal, played in octaves.
- Boyne Hunt: Originally Scottish commissioned for the Perthshire Hunt Ball circa 1788. Composed by Magdalene Stirling, a friend of Niel Gow.
- Marion MacLean of Eoligarry: Colin Melville named this tune for a resident of Barra, an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, around 2006.
- Jigs: The jig came to Ireland in the mid 16th century and Scotland later in the 17th from continental Europe — the French giguer and Italian giga.
- Banish Misfortune: Evidence that sometimes the more a tune is played, the less known of its provenance.
- Blarney Pilgrim: In reference to travellers coming to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle, County Cork seeking the gift of eloquent speech.
- Tripping Upstairs: There are several claims to authorship, with the title referencing perhaps a late-running party moving upstairs of the pub.
- Madeline Island: Sherry composed this for a wedding in 1985 for a still-married couple.
- Jigs
- Coleraine: A town in Northern Ireland (and the Iron Range).
- Connaughtman’s Rambles: To ramble is to visit with the neighbors to talk, play music, or cards. Connachta was one of the five old tribes and provinces. A poor territory in the 17th century, many poor Catholic landowners were relocated there with the slogan, “To Hell or to Connaught.”
- Carmody’s Jig: Also known as “Morrison’s Jig” for James Morrison (The Professor), who taught step dancing in Ireland in the teens and later Irish music in New York in the 30’s and 40’s. He learned the jig the night before a performance and popularized the tune taught to him by Tom Carmody as “The Stick across the Hob” taught to him by his father….
- Eileen Collins: Sherry wrote this air to honor her friend and host, Eileen Collins, who ran a bed and breakfast in Dingle that Sherry visited for almost 20 years.
- Jigs
- Swallowtail: a coat worn by early 19th-century dancing masters? Jonathan first heard recognized this tune in a Chris Thile lesson.
- Mouse in the Cupboard: Jonathan learned this tune from Jim Wells at his first session experience through The Dallas Slow Sessions.
- Sliabh Russell: pronounced “sleeve” meaning mountain, in this case in County Cavan (Western N. Ireland). The tune is perhaps the basis of “The Congress Reel” with a time conversion.
- The South Wind: This song, from at least 1792, depicts a ghost ship blown by the South wind up the West coast bringing back the souls of the Wild Geese who had been killed in battle. The Wild Geese were Irish soldiers serving as mercenaries for continental armys, many fighting the English, during the 16-18th centuries. Jonathan first heard this tune used by Bill Schustik as a shanty or cadence to coordinate end-of-day sailing tasks.
- Polkas
- Dingle Wren: Polkas are Czech dances whose popularity swept Europe and became a staple of Irish dance music in the late 1800’s generating hundreds of Irish tunes.
- P&O Polka: Named of the P&O Ferries operating between Ireland and the U.K. since 1837.
- I Have a Bonnet Trimmed in Blue: The song has lyrics from at least the early 20th or late 19th, from Scotland, perhaps as a strathspey or schottische.
- Waltz
- Far Away in Australia: about Irish emigration, of a woman waiting endlessly for word she can follow.
- Dark Island: the theme song from the 1962 espionage series of the same name set in the Hebrides.
- Reels
- Maid Behind the Bar: Ellen O’Byrne sold the recording door-to-door in NYC, eventually convincing Columbia Records to print the record in 1922, their first Irish success.
- Star of Munster: star is a euphemism for beautiful woman.
- The Congress Reel: written by Joe Mills in 1932 to commemorate the Eucharistic Dublin Congress, the 1500th anniversary of St. Patrick’s arrival to Ireland.
- Ingela’s Vals: Here’s some “pop” tunes…. well at least Sherry on her most recent trip to Ireland told us that every session had to play Morten Alfred Høirup’s (a Dane) “Ingela’s Vals.” Written in 2008, it’s an example of Irish sensibilities influence abroad and returning to be incorporated back into the session.
- Down by the Sally Gardens: Sallow garden is willow garden, but may refer to willows at river bank at Ballysadare, Sligo. The tune was made popular by a William Yeats poem from 1889 that he reconstructed from listening to a (likely much longer) song he heard from an old peasant woman in county Sligo.
Down by the salley gardens
my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree.
In a field by the river
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.