Annotation:Captain Collins

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CAPTAIN COLLINS. AKA and see "Bob Ridley (2)" (Pa.), "Bell Cow (The)" (Pa.), "Fifer's March" (Pa.), "Belling Tune (The)" (Pa.), "Montrose's March" (Playford), "Rock and a Wee Pickle Tow" (Stokoe), "Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket (The)" (O'Neill), "Highlander's March (The)" (Oswald), "O'Sullivan Mor(e's March) [1]" (Roche), "The Ribbels (Rebels) March" (Dovey), "The Cowboy's Jig" (Cole), "Blackeyed Biddy" (O'Neill), Untitled "Air" (Joyce, 1909; No. 836). American, Jig. USA, southwestern Pa. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Bayard (1981) says the tune is in the standard repertory of fifers in southwestern Pa., and one of the older tunes to be found there, having its origins in the 17th century. It can be found in Playford's Musick's Hand-Maid, editions of 1663 and 1678, his Musick's Recreation of 1669 (where it appears as "Montrose's March"), and in Oswald's 1740 collection. Beside's "Montrose's March" other titles for this tune, well and widely known in the British Isles, have been "The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow" (Northumberland, Scotland) and "The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket" (Ireland, England), which latter title Bayard says is derived from the nursery rhyme beginning:

There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket,
Seventy times as high as the moon.

One southwestern Pennsylvania title, "The Belling Tune," derived from the custom of well-known local fifer Sam Palmer to play the tune tune for "serenades," or the welcoming home of the newlyweds "with a hellish din of fife-and-drum, bells, gunshots, beaten metal tubs, firecrackers, etc." (Bayard, 1981).

Source for notated version: Samuel Bayard collected the tune from nine southwestern Pa. fifers and fiddlers.

Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 567A-I, pp. 504-507.

Recorded sources:

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