Betsy Baker (1) Click on the tune title to see or modify Betsy Baker (1)'s annotations. If the link is red you can create them using the form provided.Browse Properties <br/>Special:Browse/:Betsy Baker (1) Query the Archive
Theme code Index	537L2 331H1H
Also known as
Composer/Core Source	Biography:Thomas Hudson
Region	England
Genre/Style	English
Meter/Rhythm	Air/Lament/Listening Piece, Country Dance
Key/Tonic of	G
Accidental	1 sharp
Mode	Ionian (Major)
Time signature	4/4
History
Structure	One part, AABB
Editor/Compiler	Biography:James Alexander
Book/Manuscript title	Book:Alexander's New Scrap Book
Tune and/or Page number	No. 846, p. 8
Year of publication/Date of MS	c. 1845
Artist
Title of recording
Record label/Catalogue nr.
Year recorded
Media
Score ()

Tune annotations

X:1
T:Betsy Baker
M:C
L:1/8
R:Country Dance
B:Alexander’s New Scrap Book (c. 1845, No. 846, p. 8)
Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion
K:G
g|(dB)(BG) |(FA)(Ac)|(BG).B.d|g2 (ge)|(dB)(BG)|(FA)(Ac)|
(BG) dB|G2 G||d|(ef)ge |(fa) .d.d|(e/f/g/a)|f2 .d.d|
(efgf)|(gfga)|(gfed)|(efg).e|d>BB>G|(FA)(Ac)|
B>GB>d|g2 ge|d>BB>G|FAAc|B>G d>B|G2G||

X:1
T:Betsy Baker
M:C
L:1/8
K:G
D2B2B2G2|F2A2A3c|B2G2B2d2|g4 f2e2|
D2B2B2G2|F2A2A3c|c2A2d2F2|G4 G2B2:|
|:e2f2g2e2|a2f2d3d|e2f2g2e2|a4 a3f|
d2e2f2g2|a2f2b3a|g2f2e2d2|g4 g4:||

Tune annotations

</abc>

BETSY BAKER. English, Air (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Shields/Goodman): AABB (Miller). Early printed versions can be found in a chapbook copy printed in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1829 (a copy is in the Harvard Library), and in the Universal Songster, vol. 2 (1826, pg. 332), where it is attributed to Thomas Hudson (1791-1844). Hudson was a London greengrocer who published a number of song collections between 1818 and 1831, apparently as a side trade, as he sold them from his grocery shop. He probably composed lyrics to existing melodies. "Betsy Baker" is in his Comic Songs by Thomas Hudson: Fifth Collection (1824). It begins:

From noise and bustle far away,
Hard work my time employing,
How happily did I pass each day,
Content and health enjoying.
The birds did sing and so did I,
As I trudg'd o'er each acre.
I never knew what 'twas to sigh
Till I saw Betsy Baker.

Vance Randolph collected versions in the Ozark mountains, which appear in his Ozark Folksongs, vol. 1, No. 117. Randolph noted that the song was popular in England and America in the 1840's and 1850's, and that it appeared in several American songbooks. The melody is employed by Alstead, New Hampshire, fiddler Randy Miller as a march. "Betsy Baker" appears in the music manuscript collection of Church of Ireland cleric James Goodman (1828-1896), in what looks to be a reel setting. Goodman, an Irish speaker and an uilleann piper, collected in tradition in Cork and elsewhere in Munster in the mid-19th century, but also obtained tunes from manuscripts and printed collections.

Source for notated version: the 1938 typewritten manuscript of New Hampshire fiddler John Taggart (1854-1943), entitled "Recollections of a Busy Life" (New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, N.H.). Taggart, born and raised in Sharon, New Hampshire, and was a onetime orchestra leader and composer. Taggart wrote in his ms. that the tunes "were all taught me during my boyhood days in Sharon (N.H.), by the various fiddlers in that vicinity." Miller points out that Sharon is in "the heart of the Monadnock Region of southwestern New Hampshire, where fiddlers and contra dances abound to this day" (pref. iv) [Miller].

Printed sources: Miller (Fiddler's Throne), 2004; No. 329, p. 194. Shields (Tunes of the Munster Pipers), 1998; No. 102, p. 43.

X:2 T:Betsy Baker M:2/4 L:1/8 S:Randolph - Ozark Folksongs (vol. 1, No. 117) K:D d|AFFD|CEEG|FDFA|d2 dd|AFFD|CEEA|dcB^A| B2B2c|defd|cde3/2c/|defd|(dc) .ec|defd|c3/2 d/ e3/2 f/| dcBA|d2 d d|AFFD|CEEG|FDA3/2F/|D2D||

__NORICHEDITOR__