Annotation:Reel Roarer

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X:1 T:Reel Roarer N:A close version of “Walker Street”/”Traveller (1) (The)”. The third strain is N:marked "minor" in the ms., with no key change indicated from the 1 sharp N:at the beginning of the tune. It is perhaps meant to be played in D minor. M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Reel S:Isaac Homan manuscript (mid-19th century, Bellport, S:Long Island, NY, Book 4, p. 56) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G D|GB/G/ d/G/B/G/|A/B/c/d/ c/B/A/G/|B/d/ g/>d/ e/g/d/B/|c/B/A/G/ F/A/D/F/| GB/G/ d/G/B/G/|A/B/c/d/ c/B/A/G/|B/d/ g/>d/ e/g/d/B/|z/[D2F2d2] ^c/A/ G|| (e/f/)|{f}g(d/g/) B/g/d/g/|g/a/b/g/ a/g/e/f/|{f}g(d/g/) B/g/d/g/ c/B/A/G/ F/A/ D/f/| {f}g(d/g/) B/g/ d/g/|g/a/b/g/ a/g/e/f/|g/f/g/a/ g/f/e/d/|e/g/f/a/ g/f/e/d/!D.C.!|| P:D minor {B}A/^G/A/c/ e/^d/e/g/|f/d/e/c/ d/e/f/g/|b/a/f/b/ a/f/e/a/|f/e/d/f/ e/c/A| A/^G/A/c/ e/^d/e/g/|f/d/e/c/ d/e/f/g/|b2a2 (f/g/)(e/f/)|d2!D.C.!||

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REEL ROARER. American, Reel (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBC. "Reel Roarer" was included in the mid-19th century music manuscript collection of Bellport, Long Island, ship-builder and fiddler biography:Isaac Homan. The tune is an early version of the popular "Walker Street" AKA "Traveller (1) (The)" that has numerous variants in North America, however, it almost universally appears as a two-part tune, and Homan includes a minor-key variant. Homan may have obtained the tune from blackface minstrelsy, a genre represented by a number of tunes in his ms. The title "Reel Roarer" may also be a play on words. The phrase "real roarer" can be dated to the first half of the 19th century in the United States where it meant "a stentorian braggart", or a unabashed self-promoter (related to 'rip-roaring' or 'ring-tailed roarer'). For example, the Massachusetts Spy, an item in the Buffalo Journal of Jan., 10, 1827, mentions:

The Albany beau drinks brandy and talks politics, and is in fact what he styles himself, "a real roarer".

Similarly the Yale Literary Magazine (ii. 80.) gives:

[He was] considerably like what we now-a-days imagine a Kentuckian to be, — “a real roarer."

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