Annotation:Old French Reel (1)

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OLD FRENCH. AKA and see "Little Old Man," "Old French," "Rambler's Hornpipe," "Reel de St-Tite." Canadian, American; Reel (usually) or Hornpipe. USA, New England. D Major ('A' part) & A Mixolydian ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Silberberg): AABB (Brody, Carlin, Kaufman, Messer, Miller & Perron, Sweet): AA'BB' (Reiner & Anick). The melody was a popular vehicle for contra dancing in the 1970's, when it seemed to surface simultaneously in New England repertoire (c.f. the Nelson, N.H., dances) and on the West Coast, where it was popularized by mandolin player Kenny Hall and others. In the Kenny Hall Tunebook, Hall states he learned the tune from bandmate Cary Lung in the early 1970's. Popular belief has it that the "Old French" title derived from a remark by an old Vermont fiddler who, when asked its title, said it was "just an old French tune." Ken Perlman (1979) believed the tune was unknown in Canada and speculated that it was probably a northern New England composition in the Québec style. The apocryphal Vermont fiddler seems to have had it right, for the reel was known in Canada prior to the "folk revival" that fed American contra dancing, and was in Maritime fiddler Don Messer's "Down-East" repertoire (as "Rambler's Hornpipe," probably the source for many American "revival" musicians).

The original provenance is in Québécois repertoire, where it was recorded in 1929 under the title "Reel de St-Tite" on a 78 RPM recording by Sotère Mongrain (1869-1944) and Ida Mongrain (violin with piano accompaniment). Montreal fiddler Isidore Soucy (1899-1962) used very similar melodic material in the second strain of his "Gigue des touristes (2)" (1939) (AKA "Gigue à ma sœur" (1938)). Ottawa Valley fiddlers know it as "Rambler's Hornpipe" or "Little Old Man," while Cape Breton fiddlers call it "Old French Reel (The)."

Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Andy Woolf & Roaring Jelly [Reiner & Anick]; Ken Kosek [Phillips]; Laurie Andres [Silberberg].

Printed sources : - Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; p. 206. Carlin (English Concertina), 1977; p. 26. Jean Duval (Huit violoneux québécois méconus de la période 1922 à 1935), 2022; No. 38, p. 19. Kaufman (Beginning Old Time Fiddle), 1977; pp. 74-75. Messer (Way Down East), 1948; No. 30. Messer (Anthology of Favorite Fiddle Tunes), 1980; No. 47, p. 32. Miller & Perron (New England Fiddler's Repertoire), 1983; No. 127. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1), 1994; p. 170. Reiner & Anick (Old Time Fiddling Across America), 1989; p. 49. Sannella, Balance and Swing (CDSS). Silberberg (Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern), 2002; p. 110. Sweet (Fifer's Delight), 1965/1981; p. 67. Tolman (Nelson Music Collection), 1969; p. 13. Welling (Welling's Hartford Tunebook), 1976; p. 10.

Recorded sources : - Bee Balm 302, "The Corndrinkers." Fiddler FRLP 001, Tom Doucet (Nova Scotia/eastern Mass.) - "The Down East Star." Philo 1008, "Kenny Hall." Starr 15630-B (78 RPM), Sotère & Ida Mongrain (1929, as "Reel de St-Tite").

See also listing at :
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [2]
See Eric Lortie's transcription at Identitairs Québécois [3]
Hear Sotère Mongrain and Ida Mongrain's 1929 recording of "Reel de St-Tite" at the Virtual Gramophone [4]

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