Annotation:Grey Old Lady of Raasay (The)

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GREY OLD LADY OF RAASAY, THE ("Caillach Liath Rasar" or "Cailleach Liath Ratharsair"). AKA - "Old Lady of Rothesay/Rasay." Scottish (originally), Canadian; Reel. Canada, Cape Breton. A Mixolydian. Standard or ADae tuning (fiddle). AAB (Gunn): AA'B (Shears): AABB' (MacDonald/Skye): AABBC (Dunlay & Greenberg, MacDonald/Gesto). A pipe tune attributed to John/Iain Dall MacKay in the Gesto Collection. Paul Cranford opines that, for a relatively well-known pipe tune, it appears in remarkably few pipe collections. The Island of Raasay is in the Inner Hebrides, near the Isle of Skye. Jerry Holland, for one, plays the tune in 'raised bass' tuning.

Source for notated version: Joe MacInnis (Cape Breton) [Dunlay & Greenberg].

Printed sources: Dunlay & Greenberg (Traditional Celtic Violin Music from Cape Breton), 1996; p. 55. William Gunn (The Caledonian Repository of Music Adapted for the Bagpipes), Glasgow, 1848; p. 43. MacDonald (The Gesto Collection of Highland Music), 1895. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 116. Shears (Gathering of the Clans Collection, vol. 1), 1986; p. 45 (pipe setting).

Recorded sources: Dan Odyssey ORCS 1051, Jerry Holland - "Fiddler's Choice" (1998. Learned from the late Bill Lamey). Rodeo Banff RBS 1066, Dan Joe MacInnis - "The Cape Breton Fiddle of..." (1962. Appears as "The Old Lady of Rothesay"). Rounder 7009, Doug MacPhee - "Cape Breton Piano" (1977). Rounder 82161-7032-2, Bill Lamey - "From Cape Breton to Boston and Back: Classic House Sessions of Traditional Cape Breton Music 1956-1977" (2000). Rounder Records 7057, Jerry Holland - "Parlor Music" (2005). Smithsonian Folkways Records, SFW CD 40507, The Beaton Family of Mabou - "Cape Breton Fiddle and Piano Music" (2004).

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [2]

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