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"Larry Redican's Reel", also known as "Rags and Tatters", "Raddigan's", "Rattigan's Reel" and
"Redican's Reel" is an Irish-American reel in G Major (Flahery, Miller, Mulvihill/Mulvihill) or
F Major (Mulvihill/Greenall). The parts are played AB (Cranitch, Flaherty, Mulvihill) or
AA'BB (Miller).
According to the late Galway and New York flute player Jack Coen, this was the first tune composed by Irish-American fiddler and banjo player, Larry Redican (1908-1975). Redican was born in Boyle, Co. Roscommon to flute playing parents but chose the fiddle and studied with Frank O'Higgins in Dublin before he emigrated to the United States in 1928. He worked for much of his life for the cosmetics company Estee Lauder in New York. Redican was a member of the New York Céili Band. The alternate title "Rags and Tatters" (as, for example, on Mary MacNamara's 2000 album The Blackberry Blossom is perhaps one of the more ingenious miss-hearings of the name of the composer, Larry ‘Redican’, variously rendered at "Rattigan", "Redigan", "Rhattigan" and others. It was printed in Bulmer & Sharpley's Music from Ireland, vol. 1 (appears as "Rattigan's"), Cranitch's Irish Fiddle Book (1988) (appears as "Rattigan's"), Flaherty's Trip to Sligo (1990) (appears as "Rhattigan's"), Miller's Fiddler's Throne (2004) and Mulvihill's 1st Collection (1986). It was recorded by Brian Conway & Tony De Marco on The Apple in Winter (1981), John & Phil Cunningham on Against the Storm (1980) (as "Raddigan's"), Jimmy Keane (et al) on The Big Squeeze and Seamus and Manus McGuire on The Humours of Lissadell. |