Sheila Coyle’s reel

A notable tune with lots of character.

Four Men and A Dog do a rollicking version of this tune on Barking Mad after the song Hidden Love. Excellent tune with a really sinuous B part.

Anyone know who Sheila Coyle was, as named in the reel:

https://thesession.org/tunes/1040 ?

I’m researching this tune right now and came up with this bit from IRTRAD: “Fiddler Seamus Connolly (Lowell, Mass.) gives that the tune is entitled after a young fiddler from the Chicago area who played it for him. “

The Chicago Irish Musicians Association recorded an LP in 1981, called “Chicago Irish Musicians”. I am lucky to own a copy. Besides many well known musicians like Johnny McGreevy, Cuz Teahan, Michael Flatly ….. too many to mention them all …. there is young Sheila Coyle as well as her father Jimmy, originally from Belmullet, who plays the box.

I shall quote:

“Sheila is eleven years old and lives in River Grove, Illinois. At the age of eight she started taking Suzuki lessons (??; Gregor) from Mrs. Wurman in Oak Park, Illinois. Shortly after, she started taking lessons from Liz Carroll, who won the Senior All-Ireland Fiddle Championship in 1975. Sheila won first place under twelve in the Chicago Fleadh Cheoil in 1980 and 1981. Sheila has a love for Irish music from listening to her father since she was born.”

..Like I said this is like a DUMB question, but is this the same tune being played by Bobby Gardiner on this link..:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K_LITBKpe0A

play video

I would really really appreciate an anwer 🙂

Yeah, I’ve figured out it is…….

No it’s not.

CMO speak with straight tongue. None of the 3 reels in the clip are “Sheila Coyle’s”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ8YgLPpfz8

play video

Reeel starts at ~2:50

In October 2013 Liz Carroll told me that she got this tune (or at least the first part of it) from Johnny McGreevy, and then taught it to Sheila Coyle.

Séamus Connolly learned it from Sheila Coyle but a mix-up ensued. Séamus began propagating the tune with, as a second part, not the second part that Sheila got from Liz that came from Johnny, but the second part in the first two transcriptions here, which evidently comes from a well-known Donegal reel (https://thesession.org/tunes/3033).

Liz did play me the McGreevy second part but I didn’t have a recorder with me and can’t remember it. If I meet her again I will ask again, though, and in the meantime if anybody else could get the second part from her it would be good to add either add it here, along with the name Johnny McGreevy’s, or add it as a separate tune.

Shrouded in mystery… learnt this tune (unnamed), from a copy of an unlabelled casette, where somebody (not sure who) had recorded an unknown fiddler playing it at an unidentified session at an unspecified point in time, possibly at a festival of some sort. Other than that, I don’t know much about it. I might still have the tape somewhere, but I’m not sure.

On reflection, that may not have been that helpful.

Anyway, this version stuck with me, and I’ve been playing it (more or less) this way for a good twenty years…

I’ve added the basic tune but in the key of F just for the craic, third tune in this set:
https://youtu.be/FDLQI20Pw20

play video

Regards
David

Did anyone ever come up with the original Johnny McGreevy version?

My take