Annotation:Red Shoes (The)

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RED SHOES, THE. Canadian, Reel. Canada; Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton. A Minor (MacQuarrie): A Mixolydian (Fitzgerald). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "The Red Shoes" was composed by Cape Breton fiddler and composer biography:Dan R. MacDonald (1911-1976). MacDonald evidently composed it as a minor-mode tune, as it appears in MacQuarrie's The Cape Breton Collection (1940), had minor intervals throughout, but it can be played in dorian mode (one sharp), and Winston Fitzgerald set it in mixolydian mode (2 sharps), or pipe tuning. In its mixolydian form (a la Fitzgerald) it remains a popular and frequently recorded reel among Cape Breton musicians.

Source for notated version: Francis MacDonald (b. 1940, Morell Rear, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island) [Perlman]; Winston Fitzgerald (1914-1987, Cape Breton) [Cranford].

Printed sources: Cranford (Winston Fitzgerald’s Collection), 1997; No. 90, p. 38. MacQuarrie (The Cape Breton Collection), 1940; p. 50. Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edwards Island), 1996; p. 105.

Recorded sources: Rounder Records 7008, "Jerry Holland" (197?).

See also listing at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]

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