Annotation:One of the Boys

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ONE OF THE BOYS (Cean de na buacaillib). AKA and see "Democratic Rage Hornpipe," "Leddy's Hornpipe," "Reel du Pecheur." Irish, Hornpipe. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The hornpipe has nothing particularly Irish in character, and its appearance in Francis O'Neill's 1903 collection is probably a borrowing and retitling of an American tune, "Democratic Rage Hornpipe," found in Elias Howe's 1000 Jigs and Reels (c. 1867) and the Howe Co. Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883). One wonders if the "One of the Boys" retitle was a joke of O'Neill's, who was Police Chief of Chicago 1901-1905, during the long tenure of Democratic mayor Carter Henry Harrison; O'Neill was no stranger to the city's politics, as is revealed in his autobipgraphical Chief O'Neill's Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago.

The tune can be found in disparate regions, from New England to Quebec ("Reel du Pecheur") and the American Midwest (as "Leddy's Hornpipe"), and, while not hugely popular it has managed to embed itself into different traditions (see Jean-Pierre Joyal's article "Le Processus de Composition Dans La Musique Instrumental du Quebec" in Canadian Journal for Traditional Music [1], 1980, for a discussion of the tune in Québec). A Pennsylvania-collected untitled reel in Bayard (1981; No. 100, p. 59) strongly resembles this tune.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; p. 208. O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1747, p. 325.

Recorded sources:



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