Portsmouth Airs
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Portsmouth Airs" is an old-time breakdown in cut time and G Major.<br> The parts are played AABB (Titon), AB (Lamancusa) or AA’BB’.<br> The source usually given for this is Jimmy R. Wheeler (1917-1987),<br> a fiddler and instrument repairman who lived in the Ohio River town of<br> Portsmouth, Ohio.<br> Harmonica player John Lozier of Lewis County, Kentucky, said regionally influential<br> fiddler Ed Haley used to play it in front of the Old Railroad YMCA in Portsmouth,<br> Ohio (Hartford, 1996).<br> Jeff Titon (2001) calls the tune a northern-influenced type of melody that is<br> sometimes favored by fiddlers in the northeastern part of Kentucky.<br> "Buffalo Gals" is a distantly related tune.<br> The banjo tablature is by John Letscher.<br> It was printed in Titon's Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001) and<br> Lamancusa's The Gettysburg Collection of Old-Time Fiddle Tunes (2021).<br> It was recorded by Roger Cooper on Snakewinder (1993),<br> Jimmy Wheeler on Jimmy Wheeler: Recordings from the collection of<br> Jeff Goehring (2015),<br> Buddy Thomas (et al) on Traditional Fiddle Music of Kentucky, vol. 1: Up the Ohio<br> and Licking Rivers (1997),<br> Buddy Thomas on Kitty Puss: Old-Time Fiddle Music From Kentucky (1976),<br> Roger Cooper on Going Back to Old Kentucky (1996) and<br> John Hartford on Wild Hog in the Red Brush (and a Bunch of Others You Probably Never<br> Heard) (1996. Learned from John Lozier).<br>
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