Big John McNeil
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Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
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traditional
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Big John McNeil" also known as "John McNeil's Reel" is a Canadian, American and Scottish<br> reel in A Major. It is played in standard (or infrequently AEae) fiddle tuning. The parts<br> are played AABB (Gibbons, Messer, Sweet), AABB' (Miller & Perron) or AA'BB'<br> (Bégin, Perlman, Phillips).<br> Though now known as a Canadian standard it originally was a reel composed (as<br> "John McNeil") by the brilliant Scottish fiddler Peter Milne (1824-1908), one of<br> J. Scott Skinner's teachers and early playing partners, who earned his living playing<br> in theaters until his opium addiction (he abused laudanum, originally prescribed for<br> rheumatism) reduced him to busking on ferry-boats crossing the Firth of Forth.<br> He died in unpleasant circumstances in a mental institution.<br> John McNeil was a famous Highland dancer of the mid-to-later 19th century.<br> The melody was in the repertoire of Cyrill Stinnett, a fiddler who epitomised the<br> 'North Missouri Hornpipe Style' of playing, who apparently learned it and other<br> tunes from listening to Canadian fiddlers broadcasting on the radio from Canada.<br> An influential recording of the tune was made 'Down-East' Canadian fiddler Don Messer<br> with his group the Islanders, early in the 1940's-among the first of the sides the<br> group waxed. A very similar melody, or a version, is "Lord Ramsay's Reel".<br> Perlman (1996) notes the tune is a popular tune on Prince Edward Island and a favorite<br> vehicle for step-dancing in Prince County, PEI, on the western part of the island.<br> Irish fiddler Sean Maguire recorded the melody in the 1960's under the title "Betty's<br> Fancy".<br> The banjo tablature is by John Letscher. His note: From numerous sources.<br> Initially John Hartford.<br> It was printed in Bégin's Fiddle Music in the Ottawa Valley (1985),<br> Feldman & O'Doherty's The Northern Fiddler (1979),<br> Gibbons' As It Comes: Folk Fiddling From Prince George, British Columbia (1982),<br> Messer's Anthology of Favorite Fiddle Tunes (1980),<br> Miller & Perron's New England Fiddlers Repertoire (1983),<br> Perlman's The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island (1996),<br> Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1 (1994),<br> Silberberg's Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern (2002) and<br> Sweet's Fifer's Delight (1964).<br> It was recorded by Earl Mitton and the Valley Rhythm Boys on Down East Fiddle<br> Favourites (1958),<br> Graham & Eleanor Townsend on Graham & Eleanor Townsend Live at Barre, Vermont (1981),<br> Jay Ungar, Evan Stover and Matt Glaser on Fiddle Fever (1981),<br> The Campbell Family on Champion Fiddlers (1971),<br> Ward Allen on Ward Allen Presents Maple Leaf Hoedown, Vol. 1 (1969) and<br> The Best of Ward Allen (1973),<br> Don Messer on The Very Best of Don Messer (1994) and<br> Bob Carlin & John Hartford on The Fun of Open Discussion (1995).<br> <br> <br>
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