The only place I’ve seen “The Widow’s Daughter” called “Andy McGann’s” is on that Angelina Carberry/Martin Quinn record. Is there a recording of Andy McGann playing it? How did it come to be known as “Andy McGann’s?”
I looked through my collection and through spotify, and didn’t find any of the other "Andy McGann’s" to be that tune. So it’s possible that they just got the name wrong. Or it’s possible that someone up the chain where they learned the tune got the name wrong. Or it’s possible that Andy played it a lot, and that’s one of the names that stuck.
Well I’ve only come across that tune called McFadden’s, so my question is, where did the title "Widow’s Daughter" come from?
I have a possible clue about the designation "Andy McGann’s" though.
In the comment https://thesession.org/tunes/3303#comment851472, Phantom Button says that Gerry O’Connor called it "The Old Dundeen" [sic]. (This is evidently Gerry "Fiddle" O’Connor, not Gerry "Banjo" - see below.)
Now at a class I attended years ago in the Catskills years Jackie Daly taught a tune he knew as "Andy McGann’s". Jackie said he had learned the tune from Andy McGann in person in NY, and that he was not aware of any other source or name for it. But I soon discovered it was actually a Paddy Killoran tune, The Old Dudeen, https://thesession.org/tunes/3168
Now, in the first comment under that tune, the poster, whose name has since evaporated (Will Harmon, perhaps), says: "On his Journeyman cd, fiddler Gerry O’Connor calls this McGann’s after Andy McGann. Gerry says he got the tune from a private tape of McGann’s playing." https://thesession.org/tunes/3168#comment130989
Jumping to conclusions, possibly, but from all this I surmise some confusion between these two tunes (McFadden’s and the Old Dudeen). Gerry O’C may have later learned that one of the tunes McGann played on the tape was The Old Dudeen and mistakenly announced McFadden’s as having that name (which he mispronounced or Phantom Button misnoted as the "Old Dundeen").
Now Martin Quinn is one of Gerry O’Connor’s collaborators, so maybe Martin got the name from Gerry, before Gerry (or Phantom B) got the tune (McFadden’s) mixed up with the name of another "Andy McGann’s" (The Old Dudeen).
Ahh, Stiamh, you are correct! I had totally forgotten that Gerry O’Connor called it McGann’s. I was searching my library for "Andy McGann". Good catch on Will’s comment too. I’m hoping to see Gerry (Fiddle) O’Connor here this fall sometime, I will have to ask him more about it.
Do ask him, Reverend, and I’ll do the same if I run into him, as happens from time to time. Meanwhile here is an executive summary:
Facts:
1. Jackie Daly knows The Old Dudeen as Andy McGann’s (source: me. I have Jackie’s handwritten transcription as proof)
2. Gerry O’Connor recorded McFadden’s aka Widow’s Daughter as McGann’s (source: CD Journeyman)
3. Gerry O’Connor announced a tune as The Old Du(n)deen (source: Phantom B)
Conjecture:
1. McFadden’s and/or The Old Dudeen is/are on the private tape of Andy McGann heard by Gerry O’Connor
2. Martin Quinn got McFadden’s from Gerry O’Connor as Andy McGann’s
3. Gerry O’Connor mistakenly associated The Old Dudeen (a McGann tune) with McFadden’s (another McGann tune)
🙂
Ugh. Correction to fact 2 above (I had only listened to the end of the set).
2. On "Journeyman" Gerry O’Connor recorded a set of three reels as Hanley’s/McGann’s. The second and third of these are the tunes I know as The Old Dudeen and McFadden’s.
The plot thickens.