Annotation:Money Musk (1): Difference between revisions

Caoimhin MacAoidh (1997) has remarked that "Moneymusk" was absorbed into Irish tradition through the Ulster counties, but was played as far south as Clare and Cork. In Donegal (in the north of Ireland) this and other strathspeys were converted into a form called the 'highland,' similar to a strathspey but with a less pronounced rhythm. Likewise, Fintan Vallely, in his book '''Blooming Meadows''' (1998), writes that in Donegal "Moneymusk" was "strikingly converted from a strathspey to the high-rhythm, house-dance variant, The Highland." Donegal fiddlers play the tune in the key of 'A' Major. "[[Peeler's Pocket (The)]]" is a related Irish reel.

In contrast to New England and the eastern seaboard, in the Southern Appalachians the tune was was rarely heard (Jabbour, Krassen/1973), although not unknown. It was recorded as one of the tunes played by fiddler Ben Smith, a Georgian in the Twelfth Alabama Infantry in the Civil War (as listed by Robert Emory Park in Sketch of the Twelfth Alabama Infantry, 1906) {Cauthen, 1990}. Another Civil War reference is to be found in Bell Wiley's '''The Life of Johnny Reb''', where it is listed among the favorite fiddle tunes of Confederate musicians. "Money Musk" was in the repertoire lists of two fiddlers who played in the Raleigh, North Carolina, fiddler's convention, held in the decade before World War I. According to articles in the defunct '''Raleigh News and Observer''', it was played by one Arnold A. Parish of Willow Spirngs (Wake County, N.C.) who competed in the 1906 contest, and by S.S. Ransdell (Louisburg, Granville, County, N.C.) a year earlier in the 1905 contest (Ransdell called the tune "Money Mush"). Gail Gillespie (Fiddle-L 1/04/03) points out that Parish's town was on the border of Wake and Harnett Counties and that the latter had many Scots immigrants, "as recently as the 1840's." In the Midwest "Moneymusk" was much more common and the title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountains fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Missouri fiddlers still play the tune (it was known as a difficult piece and a "big tune" in Mo. fiddle contests up until the 1970's, according to Howard Marshall, though its popularity has waned in recent years), and "Money Musk" is one of '100 essential Missouri tunes' listed by Missouri fiddler Charlie Walden. John Hartford (2001) recorded a three-part version in the key of 'A' he learned from Missouri fiddler Roy Wooliver ("the little cross-eyed snaggle-toothed drifter who drifted in an out of almost everything we played, who was a major influence on Gene Goforth when Gene was young, who in turn was a major influence on everybody else who heard him"), that Hartford and Goforth both recorded as "Wooliver's Money Musk." "[[Wooliver's Money Musk]]," however, is quite distanced from anything resembling its Scottish roots, if indeed it is related at all except by name. Interestingly, Marshall notes the Missouri "Moneymusk" is known as an "Irish" tune, a thought perhaps derived from its transmission through Scots-Irish immigrants to the mid-South American highlands, and thence to the Mid-West. Early-recorded American versions include that by Jasper Bisbee (for Edison), who was born in 1843, Col. [[biography:John A. Pattee]] (for Columbia), born in 1844, Henry Ford's Orchestra, and North Carolina fiddler Dad Williams.  

Cole ('''1000 Fiddle Tunes'''), 1940; p. 31 & p 128.

O'Neill ('''Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies'''), 1903; No. 1361, p. 254.