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🦋 Fiddling with the standards

There is a huge body of fiddle tunes that I think of as "standards". Diverse sources, Appalachia, Ireland, Manitoba, Cape Breton, Scandinavia, the Old West... I've historically felt pretty diffident about my performances of the standards, like I don't play them fast enough or sincerely enough. But that is changing! In the past couple of weeks -- really starting in February when I recorded my take on The Sailor's Hornpipe -- I feel like I'm really enjoying playing these old tunes, and coming up with some pretty decent, enjoyable tunes for listening to. They're pretty off-beat, new and different -- my own sound at last! Here is the list so far of the recordings that I have liked well enough to upload for you to listen to:

1. The Sailor's Hornpipe -- a British dance tune first printed in the 1700's.
2. East Tennessee Blues -- credited to Charlie Bowman. This song is younger than the others, probably written in the early 1960's. Written in 1926.
3. Old Joe Clark -- a mountain ballad from eastern Kentucky, first printed in 1918.
4. The Red-Haired Boy -- I think this is an Irish tune, although I associate it with Boston.
5. Camptown Races -- composed by Stephen Foster in the mid-19th Century.
6. Whiskey Before Breakfast -- credited to Canadian fiddler Andy de Jarlis. (Or possibly it is "a traditional tune made popular by de Jarlis")
7. Bill Cheetham -- I can't find much more information about this than that it is "traditional" .
8. The Devil's Dream -- a popular English dance tune from the 1800's. I have never heard it played any other way than very fast, but I think this slower arrangement is pretty catchy.

posted morning of Sunday, April 15th, 2012
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