Reel D’Issoudun reel

This is a simplified notation off the top of my head. Not even sure the name is spelled properly - I’ve only heard it bellowed in a noisy pub. Requested by CSL. Hope it satisfies.

Wow, I have a recording of John Hartford playing this at a fiddle workshop. He says the name of the tune at some point, but the recording wasn’t good enough to catch it. He plays it pretty similiar to the version posted here.

As best as I can make out, he says the name is something like “Reel of Isodune”, the last word pronounced eye-soh-doon.

Issodun is French town, apparently. In which case the title ought to be “Reel D‘Issodun”, not “Reel de L’Issodun”.

Reel d’Issoudun is also notated in one of the two small but excellent volumes of crooked Quebecois tunes under the heading of “Tortues”(crooked)published in Canada within the last 10 years.

There is a recording of this tune on the CD “Airs Tordus” available from “Trente sous Zero” in Quebec.

Great recording of this by Nightingale on Sometimes When the Moon is High, paired with La Grondeuse.

I have a copy of the “Airs Tordus” CD by “Les Tetes de Violon”, and it is spelled “Issoudun” there.

One of my favorite tunes. The crooked measures always throw off the guitarists/banjos/mandolins though.

I’ll look for those books of crooked tunes.

Also, that version uses a small, eighth-note E pickup to the A part. (The first note is therefore played twice.)

Now that I think about it, those tune books were for sale when I was at Maine fiddle camp when Guy Brouchard was there last summer (2008) I almost bought them, but didn’t. :(
Guy Brouchard will be there again in 2009 during the first week of the August camp.