Annotation:Danny Ab's Slide (2)

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DANNY AB'S SLIDE [2]. AKA and see "Dan O'Keeffe's Slide (2)," "John Kelly's Slide (1)." Irish, Slide. A Dorian (Cowdery): A Mixolydian (Moylan, Tubridy). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune is recognizably based on the identifying strain of the ballad "Boyne Water." Source O'Leary identified Danny Ab as "a small little man that lived alone above, up the road from (fiddler) Denis Murphy" in the Sliabh Luachra region of County Kerry. Ab, who mended clothes for a living, was supposed to have obtained his stock of tunes (including many slides) from his mother (who was perhaps from Wales) and would 'diddle' them while he worked. Fiddler Julia Murphy Clifford (Denis's sister) told how Danny Ab would visit her home when she was a child—Ab would whistle while he was about the family house in Lisheen, and Julia, blessed with a good ear, would later play them on the fiddle (Donal Hickey, 1999). Alan Ward, in his booklet "Music from Sliabh Luachra," quotes Julia Clifford:

Myself and Denis were very young, you know, mad for music. One Sunday afternoon we were sitting indoors and up through our old-fashioned yard through the fields came Danny Ab. And he came in... my father knew'm anyway. He loved tea—he was mad for tea. So he started whistling these slides y'know. So we made tea for'm anyway and the more he was whistling the slides the more we were making tea. And the two of us sat there and learned the two slides while he was drinking the tea.

Source for notated version: accordion player Johnny O'Leary (Sliabh Luachra region of the Cork-Kerry border), recorded in recital at Na Piobairi Uilleann, November, 1990 [Moylan].

Printed sources: Cowdery (Melodic Tradition of Ireland), 1990; Ex. 42, p. 116. Moylan (Johnny O'Leary of Sliabh Luachra), 1994; No. 177, pp. 101–102. Mulvihill (1st Collection), 1986; No. 11 (in slide section, appears untitled). Tubridy (Irish Traditional Music, vol. 1), 1999; p. 27.

Recorded sources: Claddagh CC5, Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford – "The Star Above the Garter." Topic 12T309, Padraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy & Julia Clifford – "Kerry Fiddles" (1977). Globestyle Irish CDORBD 085, Denis Murphy & Julia Clifford – "The Rushy Mountain" (1994. Reissue of Topic recordings).

See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.Info [1].

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