Annotation:Highland Laddie (5)

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HIGHLAND LADDIE [5]. AKA and see "Dixon's Highland Laddie," "Highland Laddie (2)," "Highland Laddie's Hornpipe," "Highland Black Laddie." Scottish, Reel. A Major (Bremner): G Major (Aird). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Bremner): AABB (Aird). In America the melody appears in the music manuscript copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr. Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery's invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Quebec from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly's dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York. Some sixty or seventy years later "Highland Laddie [5]" was entered into the American music manuscript collection of M.E. Eames, frontispiece dated Aug. 22nd, 1859; nothing is known of the fiddler, save that he may have been from Philadelphia.

An English manuscript version can be found in the 1840 collection of fiddler John Rook (Waverton, Cumbria), p. 18.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1), 1782; No. 32, p. 12. Bremner (Scots Reels), c. 1757; p. 47. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 4), 1817; p. 34. David Young (Drummond Castle/Duke of Perth Manuscript), 1734; No. 29.

Recorded sources:

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