Jenny Dang The Weaver reel

This tune is of Scottish origin. It is played by Donegal fiddlers, but probably seldom heard elswehere in Ireland. It is related to - probably an ancestor of - The Longford Tinker (which occasionally goes by the same name), posted earlier this week.

Sorry, Jeremy. The EFE at the end of the 2nd part should be an 8ve higher.

Niall and Cillican Vallely recorded this original Scottish setting.

Cape Breton singer Mary Jane Lamond sings this tune.

H

Last time thru the B part I always go |abag faef|| - rounds the tune off nicely.

Here is a composite of various versions, including my own.

K: Dmaj
dA~A2 AFAB|dA~A2 f2ef|dBBA B2dB|ABde f2ef:|
d2fd efge|defd fgfe|d2fd efge|aA~A2 f2ef|
d2fd efge|defd fgfe|d2fd efge|abag fgef||

Greatly sung (and played too) by Scottish singer Julie Fowlies. Called “Gobha Bh’ann A Hogha Gearraidh”.
https://thesession.org/recordings/1502

Gobha bh’ ann a Hogha Gearraidh
B’ fhoghainteach an sealgair e
Gobha bh’ ann a Hogha Gearraidh
B’ fhoghainteach an sealgair e
Gobha bh’ ann a Hogha Gearraidh
B’ fhoghainteach an sealgair e
Gobha bh’ ann a Hogha Gearraidh
B’ fhoghainteach an sealgair e

Mharbhadh e na feadagan
Is leagadh e na calmain
Mharbhadh e na feadagan
Is leagadh e na calmain
Mharbhadh e na feadagan
Is leagadh e na calmain
Mharbhadh e na feadagan
Is leagadh e na calmain

And translation:


The smith from Hougharry
Was a brave hunter

He would kill the plover
And he would slay the doves

I love the version by Ossian, the rhythm there sounds just like the back and forth of the shuttle and the movement of a loom. And I should know, I worked in Cortaulds once! 🙂

I don’t recall “Ossian” ever recording this. Sure you don’t mean “Jock Tamson’r Bairns” ?

“Tamson’s”

Composed by the Rev. Alexander Garden [ 1700 ? - 1777 ]. Minister at Birse [ 1726 - 1777 ]. Violinist, poet and composer.
“Mr. Garden had, it seems, a man-of-all work named Jock, who came about the manse to do odd jobs, and on one occasion when the minister was in his study solacing himself with his favourite Cremona, an altercation began between Jock and his mistress, who had ordered him to ”wipe the minister’s shoon". This Jock considered beneath his dignity and sturdily refused to do, which so enraged Mrs. Garden
( who was busy “beetling” potatoes at the time ) that she rushed at him with the heavy beetle in her hand and fairly thrashed him into obedience to her order : and the minister was so diverted with the scene that he gave the air he had just composed the above title as being appropriate, Jock having been a weaver originally".
Source - “Musical Scotland - 1400 - 1894” by David Baptie

After writing out Black Donald’s Pipes (or whatever the Gaelic name is) in both Jig and Reel form I decided to turn a tune similar in form to Jenny Dang the Weaver, so I turned it into a jig, just for fun. Here’s the ABC for it.

X: 1
T: Jenny Dang The Weaver
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Dmaj
|:dAA FAB | dAA efe | dBB ABd | ABd efe:|
|:dfd efg | def afe | dfd efg | fae d2f:|

Apart from the Longford Tinker https://thesession.org/tunes/369 there’s another Irish version of this which only appears on 2 albums that I know of - see below.

X: 5
T: Jenny Dang The Weaver
S: Jack & Charlie Coen - The Branch Line
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
B3A B2dB|ABdf gfed|~A2FB A2dB|ABdf gfed|
eBBA B2dB|ABdf gfed|~A2FB A2dB|ABdf gece||
d2fd egfe|dfaf g2fe|d2fd eg~g3|fa~a2 bgec|
d2fd egfe|dfaf g3a|bagf gfed|Bdef gfed||

X: 6
T: Patsy Touhey’s Rip The Calico
S: Peter Carberry & Padraig McGovern - Forgotten Gems
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
~B3A ~B3d|ABdB efdB|~A3F ~A3F|ABde fdeB|
dBBA ~B3d|ABdg fedB|~A3F ~A3F|ABde faef||
d3f edfe|dafa g2fe|~d2fd efgf|eaaf ~g2fe|
d2fd edfe|dafd ~g2dg|bgaf gfed|(3Bcd ef gfed||

Regarding the title on “Forgotten Gems”, I’m not sure why this tune would have been linked to Rip the Calico. It’s definitely a version of Jenny Dang.

I found an archived recording online of Patsy Touhey playing the above setting on the uilleann pipes around the turn of the century. The name given at the start of the recording is Jenny Dang the Weaver, not Rip the Calico. Find it here http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/sound/fasten-the-leg-touhey - it comes after the jig.

X: 7
T: Jenny Dang The Weaver
S: Patsy Touhey
N: Transcribed from 3rd time through to capture variation in bars 6-7
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
B2 (3BBB B2dB|ABdf (3gfe dB|A2 (3AAA A2dB|ABdf gfed|
eB~B2 ~B2dB|ABdf (3gfe df|eA (3AAA A2dB|ABdf gfec||
d2fd ef (3gfe|defd ~g2fe|d2fd efgf|eaaf gfec|
d2fd ef (3gfe|defd ~g3a|bgaf (3gfe fd|(3Bcd ef gfed||

Then I found another really old archived recording from 1924 https://archive.org/details/JimmieMcLaughlinTheRoadtoGalwayJennyBangtheWeaver. It’s interesting because he’s gone the whole way and turned the beginning phrase all E dorian but adds a G regulator chord, giving it an unfinished lydian sound (effectively a Gadd6 chord), then resolves to a phrase based round A in bar 3 but combined with a D regulator, which again makes a sort of jazzy Dadd9 thing happen.

X: 8
T: Jenny Bang The Weaver
S: Jimmie McLaughlin
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
eBBA B2dB|ABde fedf|eAAG A2dB|ABdf gfed|
eBBA B2dB|ABde fedf|eAAG A2dB|ABdf gfec||
d2fd efge|defz ~g2fe|d2fd efge|fgaf bgec|
d2fd efge|defz ~g3a|(3bag af gfed|Bdef g2ag||

Ha, Dow and I submitted transcriptions of Touhey’s wax cylinder recording at the same time…Pat Mitchell and Jackie Small included this reel in their book the Piping of Patsy Touhey. This and Pat’s book on Willie Clancy illustrated thoroughly what pipers play for staccato ornaments, which may be confusing to the uninitiated - where fiddles/boxes play (3ABA we play (3AcA, for instance, as you have to lift two fingers for B but only one for c - c sharp, that is. Also (3BcB, not (3BBB, same principal. If you’re not a piper this is probably of cursory interest though. A lot of pipers aren’t crazy about Touhey’s often heavy staccato or “tight” playing, anyway.

I don’t find McLaughlin’s record particularly “jazzy” but I’m more than used to listening to regulators. One old disc with blatant 9th harmonies is this one: https://archive.org/details/TomEnnisDearIrishBoy

Haha, I beat you by about half an hour 🙂

Thanks for the heads up about the staccato triplets. I can hear it clearly now on play back. I’m afraid I’ve never played the pipes and don’t know much about the ornamentation, so I don’t know what I’m listening for. The auditory effect for me was same-note staccato triplets so I need to do some ear training!

You’re right that I shouldn’t have said “jazzy” when talking about the McLaughlin recording. The effect isn’t really jazzy at all, but those 6ths and 9ths do have an interesting effect on the sound of the tune.

I’m surprised a lot of pipers aren’t crazy about Touhey’s playing, btw. Today was the first time I’d actually heard it and I was blown away. I tend to think that early players of trad tended to have less complex ornamentation than modern players, but that’s a myth of course. I particularly like the cuts he always does on his top Gs. To me it sounds like {ga}gfed or maybe {gb}gfed, or perhaps a better way to transcribe it would be g/b/g/f/ed - I can’t hear what he’s cutting with. It sounds like there’s extra stuff going on in his rolls too…

The Bairns did indeed record it. The confusion may in the fact that it was sung by Billy Ross, who was an original Bairn and was as well in the first and last lineups of Ossian.

Matt

Those are double cut rolls you’re hearing, kind of a roll with an initial trill thrown in; on high G it’s two a notes, as you generally cut a note on the chanter with the note above it, gracing with the b would, again, require lifting two fingers, it also might cause the chanter to drop an octave. Mitchell and Small illustrate all this exhaustively, Touhey had no end of variations in the way he’d ornament things. The fellow who got me started piping mostly played the Scottish pipes and thought Touhey’s music had a very Piob Mhor quality to it, which would make sense, as according to O’Neill Touhey’s family were instructors on the pipes going back centuries, meaning they played the big pipes before the Union pipes were invented. Some of the complex multiple graces Touhey would use in slow airs are reminiscent of piobaireachd ornaments.

Touhey did/does have his detractors, even his 78s, which are comparatively restrained when you listen to the fireworks of staccato you hear on some of the cylinders (Gold Ring, Gusty’s Frolics, Colonel Fraser, etc). An example is the old piper Brother Gildas, who passed along a few tunes which are named in his honor, most notably Port An Bhrathair. Gildas was very traditional, dyed-in-the-wool if you will; someone once asked him if Touhey’s records influenced him when he was learning. “No, I was busy listening to piping!” was his retort. In contrast Clancy said he was “The Boss” and Ennis considered him “hyper-phenomenal.”

There’s more of Touhey at the Dunn Collection website: http://archives.irishfest.com/dunn-family-collection.htm Also various other musicians who contributed to O’Neill’s collections. Andy Conroy was a Roscommon piper who sort of took Touhey’s ornamentation and ran it into the ground, or fully exhausted its possibilities: http://source.pipers.ie/Gallery.aspx?id=381 The polarity here is even more stark, I’ve cued up recordings of Andy for people and they fled screaming…I’ll always remember this fiddle player blurting out how much he loved his piping, which made me about fall out of my chair with surprise, but then I got to know him better and realized this person’s more than a bit eccentric so par for the course.

So basically the g roll would be something like {ga}~g3, as in {ga}g{a}g{f}g? I thought I was hearing something like that anyway…

Here’s Mary Jane Lamond singing the song version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R45kIFYdYc

play video

The fiddler in the clip is Wendy MacIsaac if I’m not mistaken.

It seems to be related to the song “The Fisher Row”, recorded by Ossian in “The Carrying Stream”, among others.
https://thesession.org/recordings/955
http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=344

Hi
This might be the same tune as played by the Virtual Behan Session?

R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Emi
|~E3 D ~E2GE|DEGB ABGE|D3E D2GE|DEGB AGAB|
|GEED ~E3G|DEGB ABGE|D3E D2GE|DEGA ~B2 AB|
|G2 BG AGAB|G2 BG cGBA|G3 B ABcA|BddB cBBA|
|G2 BG AGBA|GABG c3d|ecdB cBAG|FGAB cdBA|
Repeats start: |GEED E2GE|…..

Pat

Would the English translation of this be “Jenny Cursed the Weaver?” It seems like “dang” in Scots dialect meant to damn or curse, but could “dang” mean something else?
https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/dang_v2