Leather Britches
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Leather Britches," a well-known reel in British and American tradition,<br> is probably Scottish in origin. An eighteenth-century Scottish version<br> in Gow's Collection of Slow Airs, Strathspeys and Reels (ca. 1795) is<br> called "Lord Macdonald's Reel," the name under which it usually appears<br> (with or without "lord") in nineteenth-century tune collections.<br> One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, p. 22, is a typical set. The title<br> "Leather Britches" (or "Breeches") is primarily an American title;<br> it appears in sets from Pennsylvania (Bayard, Hill Country Tunes, #1)<br> and West Virginia (Artley, "The West Virginia Country Fiddler," p. 38)<br> to points west and is now widely distributed on the contest fiddle<br> circuit. But there may be an Irish connection to the title.<br> In the Appalachian South the term "Leather Britches" is also used to<br> describe string beans strung on strings and hung up on porches to dry.<br> Most printed versions have two strains, but Henry Reed's version is not<br> alone in adding a third strain that essentially repeats the low strain<br> an octave higher.<br> This plays nicely in medleys with:<br> "Barlow Knife"<br> "Big Sciota"<br> "Bill Cheatum"<br> "Old Mother Flanagan"<br> "Sandy River Belle"<br> which are also in this section.<br> I don't know where I picked up ths version. I suspect Mike Seeger had<br> something to do with it. One day I picked up the banjo and it sort of<br> played itself.<br>
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