Annotation:Red Tom of the Hills

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RED TOM OF THE HILLS. Irish, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Composed by the late County Cavan/Philadelphia, Pa., fiddler Ed Reavy (1898-1988). The title is named for a ceili-loving character of Reavy’s boyhood acquaintance from “somewhere in the Monaghan hills.” Joseph Reavy relates his father recalled Tom had something of a palsy and that his had shook at times--Ed’s mother, however, said the man was not to be pitied, for his shaking drove the knife that much deeper into the butter at tea-time.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Reavy (The Collected Compositions of Ed Reavy), No. 2, p. 2.

Recorded sources:




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