MOUTH OF THE TOBIQUE, THE. AKA - "French Mary." Canadian, Reel (whole or cut time). Canada, New Brunswick. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Brody, Hinds, Messer): AABBCCBB (Songer). A Canadian reel that has had long currency as a vehicle for American contra dancing, popularized by Canadian radio and TV fiddler Don Messer. The Tobique River[1] is in the northwest of the Province of New Brunswick and is named for a Maliseet chief Noel Tobec (1706-1767) who lived at the mouth of the river. In response to a copyright query posted to Fiddle-L on 12.5.07 [1], Peter Rolland responded:Canoeing on the Tobique River near rocky bank. 1894. John Rowley 1866-1928 (photographer).
During my Nat'l Endowment for the Arts research project in 1977 into fiddling styles, New Brunswick fiddler Clarence Langentold me that Mouth of The Tobique (named after the Tobique river in New Brunswick) is better known as Grumbling Old WomanGrowling Old Man. Clarence's aunt was the music teacher of the composer, an Indian fiddler named Francis Sowish. The famedCanadian radio fiddler Don Messer in his tunebook mistakenly switched the name of two Sowish compositions and publishedSowish's tune "French Mary" under the name "Mouth of the Tobique". I don't know whether or not Francis Sowish "published" histunes or merely composed them whence they passed into oral tradition. Don Messer got hold of them somehow.
Roland guessed that the reel was composed between 1910 and 1930. Peter Corfield (2024) further remarks that the tune was played at a Sportsman's show in Boston by Claude Paget's father, at which time Canadian radio and TV fiddler Don Messer picked it up. Corfield notes the piece "was common in the Perth-Andover (N.B.) area and had been composed by a local named Francis Sowish. Corfield (2024) prints a different first strain than the one usually played, and identifies it as the strain played by Sowish and Paget; the strain usually played nowadays in its place is actually a variation strain played by Don Messer.
Printed sources : - Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; p. 198. Corfield (Tunes from New Brunswick), 2024; p. 49 (appears as "French Mary", AKA "Mouth of the Tobique"). Hinds/Hebert (Grumbling Old Woman), 1981; p. 13. Messer (Way Down East), 1948; No. 29. Messer (Anthology of Favorite Fiddle Tunes), 1980; No. 46, p. 32. Songer (Portland Collection), 1997; p. 141.
Recorded sources : - Apex 26220 (78 RPM), Don Messer & His Islanders (1942). Apex ALF 1608, "The Best of Don Messer & His Islanders." Banff RBS 1116, Graham Townsend - "Fiddling Favorites with Graham Townsend." Fretless 200A, Yankee Ingenuity- "Kitchen Junket." Green Linnet SIF 1125, Patrick Street - "All in Good Time." Green Linnet SIF 1133, Kevin Burke et al -"The Celtic Fiddle Festival" (1992). Green Linnet GLCD 3127, Sharon Shannon - "The Best of Sharon Shannon: Spellbound" (1999. Learned from Mirella Murrey, Clifden, Co. Galway). Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40126, Northern Spy - "Choose Your Partners!: Contra Dance & Square Dance Music of New Hampshire" (1999). Springwater S6, Graham and Eleanor Townsend - "The Great Canadian Fiddle." Voyager VRCD 342, Rodney Miller - "Rodney Miller's All-Round Collection of Jigs, Reels and Country Airs."
See also listing at : Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [2]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [3]
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [4]
Eric Lortie's Identitairs Québécois [5]
Hear Don Messer's recording [6] (medley of "Souris Lighthouse", followed by "Mouth of the Tobique").
