Welcome To Your Feet Again strathspey

Who wrote it?

First published by Bremner in 1757.
Naebdy kens whae wrote it.

Now, Donald, hud yer wheest! This is said to have been composed by John Riddell of Ayr, who is turning out to be a hugely interesting character.

What, Nigel? You trust the Gows?
It’s not in Riddell’s book of 1782. I read on The Traditional Tune Archive that it’s in the Drummond Castle Manuscript of 1734 (when Riddell would have been 16) which is inscribed "A Collection of the best Highland Reels written by David Young".

There are some tunes attributed to John Riddell which are not in his collection (e.g. "Stewarton Lassies" and "Jenny’s Bawbee"), but when it comes to "Welcome to Your Feet Again", you’re quite right again, Donald. Although the Drummond Castle MS setting is quite different from the above it’s certainly the same tune, making it unlikely to have been from the pen of John Riddell.

As for your comment "What, Nigel? You trust the Gows?"
1) I apologise - I was just playing around, and I didn’t mean to offend you.
2) Yes, in many circumstances I do.

It’s ok, Nigel. I was just kidding too about the Gows.

I’ve been footering around with this, playing it in B, and I rather like the idea, though my execution is still a bit lacking. I’ve altered a couple of notes and reversed some dot/cuts and written it out in full but otherwise it’s much the same as X:1 Some fun fingering shifts in this key.

I play this strathspey followed by The Fight About the Fireside on mandolin (strathspey sound great on mandolin), it’s in Gow’s Repository of the Dance Music of Scotland, Book 1. The pieces are, of course, presented in order so that one naturally follows the previous one. hi

here’s a lovely version by Max Cormier!
https://youtu.be/a9mNAkPbamc

play video