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Annotation:Twenty-Eighth of January

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X:1 T:Twenty-Eighth of January T:28th of January N:From the playing of Franklin George (W.Va.), who had the tune from an N:older fiddler, Jim Farthing. Recorded in the field in 2008 by Mark Crabtree. M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel D: D:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/twenty-eighth-january Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:Ador A,2^CE DDFA|A,D^CE D2D2|GB-cB AF-ED|GB-cB AF-ED| A,2^CE DDFD|A,D^CE D2DD|"*"GBea fd-BG|EA A2 A4:|| |:e2a2abag|eg-ab a2 g2-|gdga- bagf|efga bagf| e-a3 abag|eg-ab a2ge|df-af edBA|EAAA A4:|| P:Substitution: "*"GBea Ad-BG||


TWENTY EIGHTH OF JANUARY. AKA and see "Miller's Reel (1)," "Twenty Second of February (The)." American, Reel (cut time). USA, West Virginia. A Dorian (Am). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Silberberg): AABB (most versions). Alan Jabbour detects the title of this tune as a condensation of the names of two other tunes; the well‑known "The Eighth of January" (the date of Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans) and "The Twenty Second of February" (the date of Washington’s birthday and the title that "Miller's Reel" appears under in George Knauff's 1839 publication Virginia Reels). He believes "The Twenty Eighth of January" to be a minor version of "Miller's Reel," and begs comparison with Indiana fiddler John Summer's "Same Time Today as it was Yesterday." A few older fiddlers suggested that the 28thof January is the date that Napoleon began his disastrous retreat from Russia, however, historically this is not correct as Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow in October, 1812. The tale seems simply to be a condensation of “Bonaparte’s Retreat” stories with this tune. Modern ‘revival’ fiddlers source the tune from Bluefield, West Virginia, fiddler Franklin George[1], who learned it from his mentor Jim Farthing, who called the tune "28th of January"[2]. Farthing was a fiddler from Virginia near the North Carolina border who had moved to West Virginia for mining related jobs and who performed carpentry with George’s father.


Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Frank George (W.Va.) and Dave Milefsky [Krassen]; Armin Barnett [Phillips]; Stephanie Prausnitz [Silberberg].

Printed sources : - Brody (Fiddler’s Fakebook), 1983; p. 280. Fiddler Magazine, vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 2014; p. 20. Krassen (Appalachian Fiddle), 1973; p. 36. Claire Milliner & Walt Koken (The Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes), 2011; p. 677. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 246. Silberberg (Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern), 2002; p. 160. Songer (Portland Collection), 1997; p. 203. Spadaro (10 Cents a Dance), 1980; p. 47.

Recorded sources : - Reed Island Rounders - “Wolves in the Wood” (1997. Learned from West Virginia sources). Rounder 0010, "Fuzzy Mountain String Band" (1972). Rounder 0391, Bing Brothers - "Old Time Music on the Air, vol. 2" (1996).

See also listing at :
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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  1. ↑ Steve Goldfield interviewed Franklin George for Fiddler Magazine (vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 2014, p. 19), and was told that George had heard the tune played on an LP by "a French fiddler who played it almost identically, under a different name, a French name." George could not recall either the fiddler nor the French title.
  2. ↑ The title was curious to George who did not know what it referred to, nor had Farthing been forthcoming with an explanation.
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