Poor But Happy At 53 reel

On the album “Fonnchaoi”, Verena Commins says she learned this tune from Michael Tennyson in Leeds. Goes beautifully in the middle of Fly Fishing Reel and John Burke’s (as first track of Fonnchaoi).

Zina

According to Darach de Brun (thanks to Susan Songer), written by Paidi Ban O’Broin, a flute player from Martin’s Grove, Blackhorse Avenue, in Dublin. He died in 1994.

He is probably the best known musician from Leeds, West Yorkshire. He plays piano accordion and keyboards, and is quite young among other active musicians in the city.

Everyone admires his mighty playing and enormously rich repertoire. Not only the standard version of the very popular session tunes, he also knows very uncommon versions of well-known tunes, and even very old-fashioned tunes which we would never come across through any recording.

He’s, of course, an excellent session player but also plays an important role in the ceili band. Definitely a star in the local music scene.

Here, Here!! I’d like to concur with what’s been said about Michael, a regular visitor to Fleadh Nua in Ennis where many of us have had the opportunity to join him in session. Must be something about the water in Leeds as I can immediately think of another two great piano accordion players (Peter Duffy and John Ferguson) although I think both have now moved to Ireland!

This is the title we had for this in the 70s, in Dublin, learned originally as a ‘slow reel’ but played both slow and fast ~

tune by Paddy Bawn O‘Brien / Paidi Ban O’Broin

Here are the notes as given to me way back when, I think from a session with Paddy Bawn O’Brien (melodeon) and Sean Potts (ex-Chieftain), in Dublin. This is given, in respect, unchanged by any take I might have on this fine tune. The only change is the updating of the ABCs from the way some wrote it back then, myself included. Notes as given to me, unchanged by any take I have on the tune:

K: e minor
|: D |
EFGA B ~E3 | BcAc BE ~E | DEFG AFDF | AAGB AGFD |
EFGA Beed | edBA BBGA | BEGB ADFA | GEDF ~E3 :|
|: e |
edBA BBef | gfed BA (3Bcd | edef gbaf | gefd ~e3 f |
eBBA BGEG | BGAF GEGA | BEGB ADFA | GEDF ~E3 :|

I can’t find my original notes, but beileve from how my memory is weaving this that Paddy wasn’t playing the melodeon this time but was giving the tune to us via flute. There were a few others present, including, if memory serves me right, Paddy’s son, also on flute. But, I could be scrambling things a little, time has passed between now and then… There were around five or six of us present. We took it at roughly around 110 bpm…

Paddy O’Brien has been a big influence on piano accordion players in Leeds. Michael surely plays in Paddy’s style.

He borrowed my accordion and played a couple of great reels. Nice player!

Ignore my last comment: It seems my brain didn’t work very well. Anyway, you can listen to him playing on the net: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/ceilihouse/rams/21may.smil (Starts around 22:00)

Just so the confusions seasoning the comments above don’t leak into the facts. The Paddy Bawn O’Brien who composed this tune as “Poor But Happy at 53” played a B/C box, not piano accordion. To some folks reckoning he was the main person, or at least one of the main squeezers, behind bring in and promoting that tuning ~ B/C. Paddy also played flute beautifully and was a damn nice man, generous with his time and humour.

If that’s the title, why didn’t you submit it as an alternate title?

Here is how Donogh Hennessy plays it on “Masters of the Irish Guitar.” He has changed it to Dmix. He also plays it as a single reel.

X: 1
T: Poor But Happy at 53
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmix
D3 B AGAB|dGBG AGEG|DEGB AGAB|cA~A2 BG~G2:|
d2 de d4|dBde gedB|cABG AGEG|1(3Bcd ed BAGe:|2(3Bcd ed BAGE||

On second thought, he plays it in Ddor.

Um, Avery, surely you’ve misplaced this? Your abcs bear no resemblance at all to the tune Zina posted here.

That is what Donogh calls it and this is the only tune listed here by this name. The two versions are very differnet. After another listen I think Donogh changed the key to G major, but ends it with a D which is why I am so confused about the mode. The tune is similar, but mine is major, listen to the midis of both. I think I am going to post this as a seperate tune.

What, he call’s it Michaeil Tennyson’s? Then all the more reason to acknowledge it as a different tune. Zina’s original post is actually called Poor But Happy at 53. Verena Commins called it after Tennyson because she learned it from his playing. My guess is Donogh has done the same, but with an entirely different reel.

Unseen, it’s a different tune, and very nice one! Yeah, post it as a separate tune. I believe it’s in G.

By the way, when I met Michael and had a few tunes with him last month in Leeds, he told me he sometimes checks this website. He’ll be delighted to find these comments. Be sure to listen to his mighty playing clicking the link I posted above. The banjo player is also a good friend of mine.

Slainte, I tried posting it as a seperate tune but got one of those special messages from Jermey. I may have to try again and indicate in the comments that it is a seperate tune.

Sorry ‘phantom toggler’, but I thought I had posted the alternate title? That’s the sort of thing I usually do first and then come back later for a comment or two. It is possible in my usual confusion that this time I may have missed doing that, but it is there, and it may or may not have been me that did it?

Paddy was a gentleman and a gentle man, a lovely person, and I think this tune says that too, and the way we had with it, well, that was laid back and relaxed and with humour…

The name for this tune is

“Poor But Happy at 53”

~ credit and respect to the composer…

~ and that other slip or mere association, “Michael Tennyson’s”, however good a player or nice a person he is ~

~ that ain’t the title!
~ So, if anything, that’s the ‘alternate title’…

I do play this slightly different from the notation I was given, and as offered above. I’ll make some time to notate it out and add it here later…

K: e minor
|: B, |
EFGA BE (3EEE | BcAc BEGE | DEFG AFDF | (3AAA GB AGFD |
EFGA Beed | edBA (3BcB GA | BEGB AD (3FGA | GEDF E^DE :|
|: e |
edBA (3BcB ef | gfed BA (3Bcd | edef gbaf | gfed e3 f |
eBBA BGEG | BG (3AGF GFEG | BEGB ADFA | GEDF E3 :|

Just a few slight alterations…

Key signature: a minor
Submitted on November 5th 2006 by Bregolas.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6329

I disagree, ceol… it’s a different tune. It’s similar, and starts the same, but not close enough to my ears to be the same tune.

Yup, it is amazing what bad memory will do to a tune half remembered…

That’s ok… I only have half a wit.

As is usual, it is the B-part that strays the furthest away… But I take you note. I also consider it a different tune as a result of that, which is why I only give it as a comparison of where things can go over time. I haven’t called it ‘exactly the same tune’, or suggested that, and there’s no way I’d put the title of O’Brien’s tune as an alternate to the “Raven’s Wing”…

I learnt this tune from Dublin Piper Martin Nolan in the early 90s. It’s a fantastic tune but Martin’s setting is different again to the one’s given above.
X: 1
T: Bocht Agus Sona
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Emin
|:EFGA BE E2|c2 Bc BE E2|DEFG AD D2|ADBD A2 GF|
EFGA B2 ed|edBG A2 GA|BAGB AF F2|GEFD E2 E2:|
|:edBA B2 ef|gfed BA (3Bcd |e3f g3e|f3d e2 ef|
(3gfe fd edBA|BGAF GE E2|BAGB AF F2|GEFD E4:|

Not quite a reel, not quite a hornpipe: More like a march played at tramping tempo? The name of this tune -and the story that goes with it- remind me of Jim Phelan’s description of ‘the tramping gait’ in the opening chapter(s) of his autobiographic novel: The Name’s Phelan.

It’s a reel.

I like this one a lot; it has a nice “early music” kind of turn to it, despite its modern origins. I can definitely hear it played with shawms, lutes and rebecs.

Personally, I prefer it on the upper end of slow reel tempo, but not quite at a fast/standard reel clip.

if you try plugging ceolachan’s June 19th 2005 version in Concertina (and, perhaps, other converters) be sure to change the key to E minor (a lower case e gives you, for some reason, E flat major!).

Martin Nolan’s version transcribed from this CD.

X: 5
T: Poor But Happy At 53
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Emin
|:EFGA BE {A/}E2|c2 Bc BE ~E2|DEFG AD {A/}D2|!slide!ADBD AD {A/}GD|
EFGA B2 ed|{a/}edBG {c/}A2 GA|BAGB AF ~F2|{A/}GE{A/}FD E2 E2:|
|:{a/}edBA B2 ef|{a/}gfed BA (3Bcd |{a/}edefg2ze|~f3d ~e3 f|
(3gfe (3fed edBA|{c/}AG{A/}GF GE {A/}E2|BAGB AF ~F2|{A/}GEFD E4:|

I avoided admitting and submitting that I am often tempted to swing this, and even throw in an occasional snap. I still love it, as I still do the memory of the great character behind it. I so wish we’d had more time together, including the offer to learn a few steps. I so wish I’d recorded it all now, but then part of my attention would be in part distracted to that.

Thanks for all the music!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm7lpGhprvY

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Setting 9 is from the playing of Michel Sikiotakis on the video, 1st round

This tune grabbed my attention only very recently (and did it grab my attention, or what!?). Here’s my take on it, played deliberately slowly and straight…

https://youtu.be/DM70-9NeNR4

play video

Still a bit unreasonably obsessed with this tune which has become one of my “go to”s…

A great recording of the tune by Pete Strickler (last tune in a 3-reel set). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6NU4sdCLOk

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Dan Forney plays the tune on his Pava mandolin. (Dan makes these videos mainly as a way of reminding himself how a tune goes…) https://youtu.be/WDWlru5uc08

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Finally a recording I made yesterday as the soundtrack to a set of photos of my recently acquired second-hand Paris Swing mandolin. https://youtu.be/lwrxUza9JUA

play video