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Annotation:Miller's Reel (1)
X:1 T:Miller's Reel [1] C:Zeke Backus M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Reel B:Coes Album of Jigs and Reels, something new, for professional and amateur violinists, B:leaders of orchestras, quadrille bands, and clog, reel and jig dancers; consisting of a B:Grand Collection of entirely New and Original Clog-Hornpipes, Reels, jigs, B:Scotch Reels, Irish Reels and Jigs, Waltzes, Walk-Arounds, etc. (1876, p. 26) N:Coes performed with the San Francisco Minstrels in California from 1852 to 1859. Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:A A,C/E/ DF/A/|EG/B/ Ac/A/|B/E/c/E/ d/E/c/E/|B/E/c/B/ A/F/E/C/| A,C/E/ DF/A/|EG/B/ Ac/e/|{g}f/e/f/g/ a/g/a/f/|e/c/B/c/ A:| |:(3e/f/g/|ag/a/ f/e/c/e/|bb/g/ a/g/f/e/|g/e/b/e/ g/b/e/g/|f/e/^d/f/ e(3e/f/g/| ag/a/ f/e/c/e/|f/g/a/g/ f/e/c/e/|f/B/g/B/ a/f/e/d/|c/A/B/G/ A:|]
MILLER'S REEL [1]. AKA and see "Dawn (1) (The)," "Dawning of the Day (5) (The)" (Fáinne an Lae), "Dusty Miller (5)" (floating title), "Spirit of 1880 (The)," "Twenty-Eighth of January," "Twenty Second of February." AKA - "The Miller." American, Irish, British; Reel. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Bayard, Silberberg): AABB (most versions): AA'BB' (Phillips). "Miller's Reel" is a fairly common and widely known fiddle tune in America, although it is also heard in Scotland ("Miller (The)") and Ireland ("Dawn (1) (The)," "Dawning of the Day (5) (The)"). There seems no particular antiquity to Irish versions, however, and the provenance may be American. The melody is very similar to "Spirit of 1880 (The)," and in modern times is also known as "Twenty-Eighth of January (The)." The reel appears as "Twenty Second of February" in George P. Knauff's Virginia Reels, volume II (Baltimore, 1839).
The composition is credited to New England bandleader and tune composer biography:Zeke Backus in Coes Album of Jigs and Reels (1876) and in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), published by Elias Howe in Boston. Little is known of Backus, who seems to have been a sometime minstrel performer and apparently spent at least some time in San Francisco. "Miller's Reel" was published earlier in another of Elias Howe's publications, 1000 Jigs and Reels (c. 1867) as an untitled 'reel' included in the section of schottisches, and it may be that Howe's source for the tune in that publication was also Backus. The claim of the composition for Backus is diluted by the cognate reel published in 1839 by Knauff, however, which, while differing in melodic detail is substantially the same tune.
See also the related "Big Tiger Special." "John Sharp's Hornpipe" is a distanced variant. See also Montreal fiddler Joseph Allard's "Reel du tricentenaire (1)," a distanced version (particularly in the first strain), as is Louis "Pitou" Beaudreault's "Reel de ma tante Lydia."
