Annotation:Reel St-Siméon
Back to Reel St-Siméon
REEL ST-SIMÉON. AKA and see "Ronfleuse Gobeil," "Snoring Mrs. Gobeil." AKA - "Saint-Siméon (1)." French-Canadian, Reel (cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BBCC'. From the repertory of fiddler Jos (Joe) Bouchard (1905-1979) who recorded the reel as "Reel St-Siméon"
in Montreal in 1938 for Victor Records (issued by their subsidiary, Bluebird). The first two strains of the tune, however, are credited to fiddler Willie Ringuette (1898-1969, Trois-Rivieres, Québec), who recorded it in 1927 (Columbia 34109-F [1]) and passed it on to her violin student, Jean Carignan. Carignan's recording of "Ronfleuse Gobiel" helped to popularize the tune with that title. The third part of "Reel St-Siméon" is a variant of the second strain of the Irish reel "Maid Behind the Bar (1) (The)" and was part of Bouchard's 1938 recording, so the union of the strains is at least that old.
Saint-Siméon, Charlevoix-Est, is a town on the St. Lawrence River.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Recorded sources: Bluebird B-1156-A (78 RPM), Jos Bouchard (1938). Carnaval CS-530, "Jos Bouchard." Chris Norman - "The Beauty of the North" (1994).
See also listing at:
See Pascal Gemme's blog entry on the tune, with standard notation transcription [2]
Hear Joe Bouchard's 1938 recording at youtube.com [3][4]