"Welcome Whiskey Back Again" is a strathspey in B Flat Major (Gow, Skye),
A Major (Skinner), C Major (Hardings), D Major (Little) or G Major (Williamson).
The parts are played AB (Cranford), AAB (Athole, Little, Skinner, Skye), AABB
(Hardings, Williamson) or AABB' (Kerr). It was composed by Niel Gow (1727-1807) who
described it as:
"Alluding to permitting whiskey to be distilled in the year 1801. It is a merry dancing tune".This tune follows the companion tune "Farewell to Whiskey", that was also composed by Neil Gow as a lament on the occasion of the British government's prohibition of using barley to make whiskey in 1799, due to the failure of the crop in Scotland in that year. Another tune by Neil Gow in this collection is "Drunk At Night and Dry i'da Morning". It was printed in Carlin's Gow Collection (1986) (appears as "Whiskey Welcome Back Again"), Cranford's Winston Fitzgerald (1997), Gow's Fifth Collection of Strathspey Reels (1809), Hardings' All Round Collection (1905), Kerr's Merry Melodies, vol. 2 (c. 1880’s), Little's Scottish and Cape Breton Fiddle Music in New Hampshire (1984), MacDonald's The Skye Collection (1887), Skinner's Harp and Claymore (1904), Stewart-Robertson's The Athole Collection (1884) and Williamson's English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes (1976). It was recorded by Winston “Scotty” Fitzgerald on Classic Cuts, Cathie Whitesides on Gems of Irish and Cape Breton Fiddling (1983), The Albanach Guitar Duo on Weave (2012) and Pete Clark on Even Now (2012). I learned it from Williamson's book. |