Smith’s Burn reel

This reel is popular in Cape Breton. Written by James Stewart Robinson of Scotland.

This tune can be found in the Cape Breton Fiddlers Collection from Cranford Publications.

This is the tune listed as The Smith’s Burn that Alex Francis MacKay plays on A Lifelong Home. I suspect it is mislabeled. It sounds completely different to my ears. The tune he plays before it in the set has labeling issues as well.

Thumbed through the Athole Collection but did not spy it…the mystery continues. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

And indeed it is mislabeled. This is called Put on the Steam. Thanks again to Paul Cranford for sending over the music for this. The A.F. MacKay version is different in the second part to what is written, leading me to overlook it. A great tune that will be posted under it’s proper name.

On the 1965 LP “Dan Joe MacInnis; At The Piano - Loretta Beaudry” (Banff RBS 1247), the name “Smith’s Burn” seems to be applied to the tune more usually known as The Rejected Suitor or O, She’s Comical, in English; the apparently-misnamed “Smith’s Burn” - the first ‘setting’ above - follows that one in a medley - but under the title of “O, She’s Comical” - in other words, the titles are ‘reversed’, and one is apparently wrong to start with …!

Anyone have an alternate name for that ‘first setting’? ‘Put on the Steam’ seems to be a different tune altogether.

I.e., Put on the Steam is the ‘second setting’ above, but is obviously a different tune than that of the ‘first setting’.

Wait - I’ve gotten myself confused here: apparently, the ‘first setting’ is the legitimate Smith’s Burn, so the ‘correct’ titles on the Dan Joe LP are in reverse order.

Barry Shears has the first tune, under the name Smith’s Burn, in his Gathering of the Clans collection of Cape Breton pipe tunes, published in 1991. He lists the Gaelic name as being Allt A’ Gobha. Great tune - I’ve been playing it for years.