The "Silver Spire" title for the tune developed sometime in the intervening years between then and Sligo fiddler Paddy Killoran's 1930 recording of the melody with the new title.The Silver Spire
AKA and see “Bennett's Favorite,” "Great Eastern Reel," "Grondeuse (1) (La)," "John Brennan's Reel (1)," "Nelson's Chase]]," "Scups Come." Irish, Reel (whole or cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (most versions): AA'BB' (Taylor/Crack). The reel was printed by blackface minstrel banjoist James Buckley in 1860 as "Bennett's Favorite" and in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) as "Great Eastern Reel." Nearly simultaneously with the Ryan's Mammoth issue, the tune was published under the title "Scups Come" in Laybourn's Köhlers' Violin Repository Book 2 (1881-1885). All these were predated by its entry into Book 1 (1851, p. 7) of the music manuscript collection of Bellport, Long Island, shipbuilder and fiddler , who called it "Nelson's Chase."
The "Silver Spire" title for the tune developed sometime in the intervening years between then and Sligo fiddler Paddy Killoran's 1930 recording of the melody with the new title. Donegal fiddler Tommy Peoples’ and Sligo fiddler Paddy Kiloran (1904-1965, recorded in the early 1930's in a medley paired with "Farrell O'Gara") versions are highly regarded, as is that of the Ballinakill Ceili Band (recorded on a 78 RPM) in which the melody is played as a hornpipe. Since no earlier record of the name “Silver Spire” occurs earlier than 1931 Killoran recording, it may be speculated that it was a tune that had become detached from its name, and the Killoran, Sweeney or the record company decided to call it after the then-current New York City engineering marvel, The Empire State Building, completed that same year, or its rival skyscraper the Chrysler Building, completed in 1930 (the Chrysler even has a silver spire adorning its top). Other suggestions are that the title is a corruption of the similar title of another Irish reel, “Silver Spear (The),” which migrated to the older “Great Eastern” tune.
Although we are not trained musicologists and make no pretense to the profession, we have tried to apply such professional rigors to this Semantic Abc Web as we have internalized through our own formal and informal education.
This demands the gathering of as much information as possible about folk pieces to attempt to trace tune families, determine origins, influences and patterns of aural/oral transmittal, and to study individual and regional styles of performance.
Many musicians, like ourselves, are simply curious about titles, origins, sources and anecdotes regarding the music they play. Who, for example, can resist the urge to know where the title Blowzabella came from or what it means, or speculating on the motivations for naming a perfectly respectable tune Bloody Oul' Hag, is it Tay Ye Want?
Knowing the history of the melody we play, or at least to have a sense of its historical and social context, makes the tune 'present' in the here and now, and enhances our rendering of it.
Andrew Kuntz & Valerio Pelliccioni
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