jig medley on 1971 bagpipe album
It was 1972, I was 15 years old, and my father bought a Scottish bagpipe album called Farewell To The Greys.
It had bagpipe band tunes, brass band tunes, and some tunes with bagpipes and brass together.
The album is by far the biggest-selling bagpipe album of all time, due to it being the bagpipe debut of the American hymn-tune New Britain, used for the hymn Amazing Grace.
Yet the jig medley on that album remains obscure. The middle of the three jigs, The Duck, has long been a favourite. It’s one of the well-known compositions by Donald MacLeod.
The first jig, called "nameless" on the album, is called Groatie Buckie Mannie and is heard once in a blue moon. Though it has four parts, only the first two parts are usually heard. It was composed by Charles Williamson. It wasn’t in Tunes here so I added it yesterday. https://thesession.org/tunes/20497
The third jig is more of a mystery. On the album it’s called Eleanor’s. No tune of that name appears in my (admittedly old) copy of An Encyclopedia Of Tunes For The Great Highland Bagpipe by Robert Pekaar.
There’s a Highland pipe march called Ellenorr which isn’t related. There’s also a recently-composed fiddle tune called Eleanor’s Jig which is unrelated.
Most interesting is the Scottish Country Dance called Eleanor’s Jig, however I’ve not been able to locate a recording of the name tune, to find out if it’s the same tune as appears on Farewell To The Greys.
In any case I transcribed Eleanor’s from the album and just now posted it in Tunes. https://thesession.org/tunes/20507#setting40597
This three-jig set is part of a larger medley:
slow air: Leaving Rhu Vaternish
three jigs: Groatie Buckie Mannie/The Duck/Eleanor’s
drum salute (drum corps only)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfEfvJNV_0s
