Hi.
I am looking for tunes that both ITM musicians and bluegrass /old time musicians share.
I guess Red Haired Boy, Miss Mcleods reel, Eight of January (Gulf of Mexico), Fishers Hornpipe, Whiskey before Breakfast could fit in all camps.
Do you have other examples? Thanks.
Ketil
The Temperance reel I’ve heard in both bluegrass and irish sessions.
I believe Johnney Has Gone For a Soldier is an Irish tune (Shule Aroon) but it was also played during the Revolutionary War and Civil War in America and I’ve heard it played as Old Time / Bluegrass.
Fairy Dance aka Old Molly Hare
St. Anne’s reel for sure.
De’il amang the Tailors/Devil’s Dream,
Boys of Bluehill/Twin Sisters
ah, nearly forgot, Girl with the Blue Dress On/Over the Waterfall
Great! Keep’em coming! Thanks
@christy taylor - do you list alternative names or two different tunes?
Ketil, the name before the / is the title used in the UK and Irish Republic, the one after the US title. Sometimes the versions are pretty much identical, sometimes they’ve changed a bit crossing the Atlantic!
Some of been mentioned before, there’s an older discussion linked with some other suggestions as well.
Soldiers Joy
Leather Breaches
Cuckoo’s Nest
Moneymusk
Camptown Races
Girl I Left Behind Me
Turkey in the Straw
Over The Moor To Maggie
Flowers of Edinburgh
Cooley’s
Miss Mcleods/Hop High Ladies
St Anne’s Reel
Temperance Reel
Boil the Breakfast Early
Devil Among the Tailors
John Stensons #2
Midnight on the Water
Bonapartes’
Ashokan Farewell
Irish Washerwoman
Older Discussion
https://thesession.org/discussions/33937
Sally Goodens
Soldiers Joy
Swallow(s) Tail Jig
Grand!! I think I have enough now 😉
Waiting for the Federals (at least if you include Scottish sessions ).
I was listening to a recording of Texas style fiddler Lewis Franklin a while back and he played an up tempo tune called Smith’s Reel. I was sure I knew this tune from somewhere but it seemed “different”. It came to be that it was in fact a version of what I know as the Irish hornpipe “Kitty’s Wedding” but with the parts reversed and played as a breakdown. “Miller’s Reel” is another example, I know this tune as “The Dawn”.
Irish, Old-Time, and Bluegrass yes, but the New England Contra Dance should not be over looked. It is where you will find a great many common tunes.
All of the suggested tunes are good examples (do you sense a “but” coming) in that the names cross from one genre to another and when played in other styles they often have a passing acquaintance with the same melody. Still each style carries with it a common lift, attack, approach, feel (call it what you will) that is unique to itself. If that was not true they wouldn’t be separate genres would they? In my experience an Irish tune is not, really not, the same thing when played by an old-time, or bluegrass, or cajun, or Scottish, or contra group, or even an orchestra. Some tunes make the transition easier than others, but the differences are notable.
I am not in any way saying that one way is better, that one is “right” and another “wrong”. We’re talking about folk music here. I do suggest that it isn’t enough to know the tune. To make it work well a player has to be able to change the style.
Billy in the Low Ground, surely.
Many (most?) old time fiddle tunes in my area of the country (Tennessee/Appalachia,) have their origin with the Scots-Irish/Ulster-Scots.