Annotation:Charlie McDevitt's
X: 1 T:Charlie McDevitt's R:reel C:Ed Reavy M:2/2 L:1/8 Z:Joe Reavy N:Named for a keen observer of the music. He was one N:of the many Donegal fiddler friends of Ed, who came N:often to exchange tunes and old stories. Charlie had N:a great head for the music, but not the hands to match. N:Trying to finger a difficult passage he was often heard N:to exclaim, "They won't go down." But this did not deter N:Charlie from becoming an important influence in the N:tradition at that time. He affectionately called Ed, N:"the Doctor". K:D ed | cAAG FDEF | GDEF G2 AB | cBAG EDEG | Addc dfed | cAAG FDEF | GDB,D G2 AB | cBAG EDEG | Addc d2 :| |: ed | cdef gfge | a^gaf =gfge | cdef gfge | fage d2 ed | cdef gfge | a^gaf =gfed | (3Bcd ef gfge | fage d2 :||
CHARLIE McDEVITT'S. Irish, Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Composed by County Cavan/Philadelphia fiddler and compser Ed Reavy (1898-1988). McDevitt was a fiddler from Donegal who would visit from time to time with Reavy. Ed's son Joseph Reavy remembers that he had "a great head for music but not the hands to match. Trying to finger a difficult passage he was often heard to exclaim, 'They won't go down!'.
Reavy's tune is quite close to Sligo flute player "John Egan's Reel (1)"; the two are cognate versions of one-another. Reavy may have composed the reel, but how it ended up in Egan's repertory needs to be explained; or, it may be that the reel was absorbed by Reavy, who may have had it mistakenly attributed to him, or he mistakenly self-attributed it.
