History

Mrs Saggs is a modern English tune composed by Chris Wood in 1990.

Although some written sources notate it as a march, in practice it is often treated more freely and lyrically. In session contexts it frequently loses strict dance function and becomes a melodic piece shaped by phrasing rather than tempo.

Your classification as an air reflects how it is often performed: expressive, flexible, and guided by breath-like phrasing rather than rhythmic drive.

Overview

Jiggery Pokerwork is one of the best-known modern English session tunes, composed by melodeon player John Spiers. Despite being a relatively recent composition, it has become so widely played that many musicians encounter it alongside traditional repertoire in sessions across England and beyond. The tune combines strong rhythmic drive, memorable melodic hooks, and a characteristically English dance feel that reflects Spiers’ influential style as a performer and composer.

Originally written as a tribute to Spiers’ beloved Hohner Pokerwork melodeon, the tune has become a favourite among melodeon players while remaining popular with fiddlers, flutes, whistles, concertinas, and other melody instruments.

History

The earliest firm record of this reel is an untitled entry in the manuscript collection of County Leitrim fiddler and piper Stephen Grier, compiled around 1883. The same melody appears in print that year in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, published in Boston under the titles “Indy’s Favorite” and “Judy’s Reel”. Claims that the tune circulated a century or more earlier turn up in some modern write-ups, but they are not backed by a printed or manuscript source, so they should be treated as unconfirmed.

The Butlers of Glen Avenue is one of those tunes that quietly slips into sessions and stays there. It has the kind of flowing, memorable melody that feels instantly familiar after only a few listens, while still having enough shape and movement to keep experienced players interested for years.

Like many modern Irish tunes, it now lives in that interesting space where players often assume it is “traditional” simply because it has become so widespread.

History

“Baby Ben” comes from the North Alabama old-time fiddle tradition, and the tune is closely associated with fiddler James Bryan, who was born in Mentone, Alabama, and has spent decades playing tunes drawn from local fiddlers, family repertoire and older recordings. There is no evidence of a composer’s name attached to the tune, and it is best treated as traditional, passed down through playing rather than through print.

The earliest documented transcription dates from 1995, when the tune was noted down by Dave Barton from Bryan’s playing at the Festival of Fiddle Tunes, an old-time and traditional music workshop event. It also appears in the collection “Old Time Fiddling From The State Of Alabama,” associated with Bryan’s recorded repertoire and referenced in online tune archives. Beyond this, no earlier printed source has been confirmed, so any claim of a nineteenth-century or older origin would be speculation.

History

Mynydd Yr Heliwr (“The Huntsman’s Mountain”) is a composed jig, not a traditional tune in the strict sense, though it is now played and treated as part of the Welsh session repertoire. It was written by Stephen Rees, a fiddler, whistle and pibgorn player, and piano accordionist who joined the Welsh group Ar Log in 1983.

Rees went on to become a founder member of Crasdant and built an academic career at Bangor University specialising in the traditional music of Wales, including work on the crwth and the pibgorn through the society Clera. His compositions sit comfortably alongside the older Welsh dance tune repertoire, and Mynydd Yr Heliwr is a good example of a modern tune written in a traditional idiom.

History

Banish Misfortune is a three-part double jig from the Irish tradition. It appears in print by 1883, in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, and again in Francis O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (Chicago, 1907), where it is numbered 53. Whether either printing represents the tune’s first appearance in a collection is not established, and no composer is credited in either source, so it is treated as traditional.

One of the earliest known recordings is a wax cylinder made around 1902–1904 by the fiddler Edward Cronin, part of the O’Neill Cylinders held today by the Ward Irish Music Archives. That places it among the oldest dance tunes for which sound recordings survive, well before the tune had any commercial recording history.

History

John Ryan’s is a widely known Irish polka, though its origins are not firmly documented. It has been suggested that the tune was composed, or at least set in its now-standard form, by Seán Ryan (1919–1985), a fiddle player from Nenagh, County Tipperary, which may explain the “Seán Ryan’s” alternative title found in some sources. This attribution is not certain, and the tune is more usually treated as traditional.

History

The tune now known as “The Blarney Pilgrim” has an older identity as “The Parish Girl”. In the Stanford/Petrie collection it carries a note that it was “set about 1800 by Daniel McHourigan”, though this date and attribution can’t be independently confirmed and should be treated as a claim from that source rather than settled fact.

The earliest source that can be dated with confidence for the tune under indexed recordings and transcriptions is from 1903, which places it firmly in the printed record by the turn of the twentieth century. O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland also lists “Parish Girl” as an alternative title, with a notated source coming from Chicago fiddler Edward Cronin, who was born in 1838 in Limerick Junction, County Tipperary, one of the many Irish emigrant musicians whose playing fed into the O’Neill collections in America.

History

The Butterfly is one of the best-known slip jigs in the modern Irish repertoire. Its composition is generally credited to the Dublin fiddler Tommy Potts (1912–1988), though the story is more layered than a single-author tune.

Potts learned the first two parts from his father, John Potts, an uilleann piper. Those two parts are older than Tommy Potts himself, and turn up under other names, including “Skin the Peeler” and “Barney’s Goat,” in earlier printed collections such as Frank Roche’s Collection of Traditional Irish Music (1912) and Cole’s 1000 Fiddle Tunes.

History

“Sally Will You Marry Me” is an American old-time fiddle tune from West Virginia, most closely associated with Braxton County fiddler Melvin Wine (1909–2003). Wine was born in Burnsville, West Virginia, into a fiddling family that traced back several generations, and he lived his whole life in the small community of Copen, in Braxton County.

The tune is not known to have a documented composer. It belongs to the West Virginia old-time repertoire that Wine and other Braxton County fiddlers carried forward through direct family and community transmission rather than print. Wine himself could not read music, so his tunes were passed on entirely by ear, which is typical for this repertoire and makes an exact date of composition impossible to establish.