Bobby Casey’s reel

You can never own too many….

We’re working this up with Boil the Breakfast Early and maybe the Mullingar Races. Thought it would be a nice complement to Zina’s post of another Bobby Casey in a more sorrowful key.

I really like the way the accents and ornaments fall on the second half of the bars in this tune, and especially the chord change late in the bar in measure 3 of Part B.
Enjoy!

I just noticed something unusual about this tune. There are no C notes in it at all.

It’s not really of any importance except that you could come up with some imaginative backing , switching between the D and G without worring about an intrusive C note.

This is a cool one, Will! Where’d you get this one?

Zina

From Bobby Casey, I guess. 🙂 I honestly can’t remember where I learned this one. A bunch of tunes came and went over the first 15 years of playing. Most I was able to transcribe for the session tunebooks I put together for our local circle. Other players pick them up and I think, “oh that sounds familiar,” but they don’t always jump right back on the fingers.

Glad you like it.
Will

Is this the reel that goes by the amusing title of “The Hump In The Bed” by Michael Dwyer?

Whilst researching this tune, I came across an archived thread from Irtrad in which Paul De Grae explains a bit about the origins of this tune, and also that syncopated tied B you often hear in the first bar (I’d always wondered whether this was in the original version). I hope he doesn’t mind me simply cutting and pasting his comments, but I found them very informative and reckoned they needed sharing:

––––––––––––––––––––––
Philippe has given details of the other “Crosses of Annagh”
tune [the Matt Molloy version https://thesession.org/tunes/1170 of The Cottage In The Grove https://thesession.org/tunes/558 which appears on De Dannan’s Mist Covered Mountain]. I can only add that I don’t think that one is a Michael
Dwyer tune; it’s not in the collection I got a while ago,
“Farewell to the Gort: Sixty Original Tunes Composed by
Michael Dwyer”. I suppose it’s not surprising that a great
musical place like The Crosses of Annagh should have a
couple of tunes named after it.

The tune that I posted is called “Michael Dwyer’s Reel or
The Crosses of Annagh” in “Farewell to the Gort”. In
Bulmer & Sharpley’s “Music from Ireland”, Vol. 2 (no. 31)
it’s called “Bobby Casey’s”. Neither of those settings has
what Jerome aptly called “the funkifying tie between the Bs
in the first part”. I think we got this from our friend Kevin
Ryan, who was the first person we heard playing this tune;
I’m fairly sure we also heard it played that way in Co. Clare.
What I posted was the tune more or less as we play it, but
I did refer to the two other settings to check one or two
notes. I’ll have to check whether the tune is “funkified” on
the recordings by Josephine Keegan and Kathleen Collins.

>And, where does the name “The Hump in the Bed” come from?

From Kevin Ryan. I believe Kevin learned the tune in Liverpool
with that name; we use it in preference to “The Crosses of
Annagh” to avoid confusion.

About the Michael Dwyer collection. After his untimely death,
other members of the Dwyer family began to consider putting
together a collection of his original tunes for publication.
Photocopies of a preliminary version of the book have been
circulating freely in the West Cork area, where Michael lived,
and a mutual friend of ours and the Dwyers loaned us one of
these so we could copy it; apparently the family don’t mind
about copyright - yet. The “book” is unbound, and only the
contents page is type-set; the remainder consists of hand-
written staff notation, reasonably easy to read. If anyone is
interested, I’ll type up the contents when I get a chance.

- Paul.
—————————————––

Then in another thread he kindly provides a contents list for Michael Dwyer’s book of compositions:

Jigs
1 . Michael Dwyer’s Jig
[this is the one called “Connie O’Connell’s” on the Jackie
Daky/Seamus Creagh album - an elaboration of “The Two-
and-Sixpenny Girl” or “The Half-Crown Girl” in Ryan’s - PdG]
2. The Bluebells are Blooming
3. The Field of the Gold
4. The Old Bog Road
5. Cunningham’s Return
6. Miah’s Fancy
7. Donegan’s Daughter
8. Owen Moran’s
9. The Merchant
10. The House on the Hill
[not to be confused with the two reels of the same name - PdG]
11. The Old Plough
12. The Rocking Chair
13. The Grassy Road
14. The Humours of Castletown
15. The Copper Mines
16. McCarthy’s

Hornpipes
17. The Copper Mines
18. Farewell to Camus
19. The Merry Widow
20. Farewll to Ranna
21. The Fog
22. The Executioner
23. The Millbrook
24. The Horizontal Man
25. The Old Brown Mare
26. The Old Beetle
27. The Old Bank
28. The Paradise
29. Farewell to Pulleen
30. The Coastguard Station
31. Arthur’s Fancy
32. A Trip to Fe/
33. The Boat in the Harbour

Reels
34. Michael Dwyer’s Reel or The Crosses of Annagh
35. The Humours of Castlecove
36. Kitty the Cats
37. The Mischief-Maker
38. The Altar-Boy
39. The Rock of the Lies
40. Dixon’s Dog
41. The Old Oak
[not The Old Oak *Tree*, recorded by T. Peoples, etc. - PdG]
42. The White Fuschia
43. A Trip to Glenbeg
44. The Rocky Road
45. The Daffodils in Bloom
46. A Tribute to John Kelly
47. The Green Fields of Beara
48. Farewll to the Gort
49. Farewell to Bally
50. The Sunshine
51. The Picture on the Wall
52. Lena’s Return
53. The Peanut Eater
54. The Beer Garden
55. Murphy’s Dog
56. The Old Schoolhouse
57. The Grey Bog
58. The Gap of the Hill
59. The Fly on the Butter
60. The Waterfall

http://ezfolk.com/audio/download.php?mode=song_lofi&band_id=3365&song_id=10450

X: 1
T: Bobby Casey’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
|:DFAB B2 AB|defd edBA|DFAB B2 AB|dgfd edBA|
|DFAB B2 AB|defd ef d2|fgaf g2 fe|defd edBA:||
|:defd eA A2|defg afge|defd eB B2|gB B2 dBAB|
|defd e2 fe|defd ed (3Bcd|ABdf bafb|afeg fddA:||

Though it is in A and an altogether different reel, there’s an uncanny similarity between the opening bars of Jr Crehan’s The West Clare Railway https://thesession.org/tunes/10091and this tune.

…which hints at a set: one reel leading into the other -either way- though I prefer The West Clare Railway first followed by the ‘lighter’ Bobby Casey’s. Such a set offers both similarity and contrast: a subtle change of mood.

A friend of mine gave the Crosses of Annagh title; I thought she must be high, having used that title for the other reel; but I see it’s applied to this tune as well.

In Mulvihill’s collection he calls it the Ballinakill. Perhaps we’ll use that.

A Bob Gardiner version (under the name Crosses Of Annagh ) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYcF5s6Fe8g

play video

This version was played by fiddler Mick Kappler (R.I.P.). He used to play it before Longford Tinker.

We play this like DFAB3 AB, giving it a syncopated feel in the first bar.