Annotation:Morning Star (2)
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MORNING STAR [2]. AKA and see "London Pride." English; Hornpipe or Morris Dance Tune (4/4 time). F Major (Bacon): G Major (Mallinson). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Barry Callaghan (2007) points out "there are many variants of this lovely tune, many in modal forms, and played as hornpipes, as morris tunes , and even as airs." Versions appear in several musicians' manuscripts of the 19th century, including Joshua Jackson (Harrogate, north Yorkshire, 1798), John Miller (Perth, Scotland, 1799), and G. Huddeswell (Leeds, west Yorkshire). William Hathaway of Lower Swell had the tune in his manuscript copybook as "London Pride (2)," although that title usually goes with another tune (London Pride (1)/Idbury Hill). Collector Cecil Sharp noted "Morning Star" from the playing of James Lock of Newent, Gloucestershire.
The morris dance version was collected from the village of Bledington, in England's Cotswolds. The portrait on the cover of Kennedy's Fiddlers Tune Book/Traditional Dance Music series (by artist A van Anrooy) depicts Charles Benfield, the fiddler for the Bledington morris men in the second half of the 19th century. Benfield started out by playing the pipe and tabor, instruments he had 'inherited' from the renowned Sherbourne and Northleach musician Jim 'the laddie' Simpson, who had succumbed to an overdose of alcohol in 1856. The fiddler became a key figure in the Bledington morris tradition, eventually leading the "junior side" of dancers born in the 1860's, men who survived to pass on their tradition to larger audiences when collectors visited in the 1930's.
Philip Health-Coleman finds a relationship between Benfield's tune and the Irish "Morning Star (1)," and references in particular the first half of the second strain of "Morning Star [2]" for the connection.
Source for notated version: Charles Benfield (Rollo Woods, Gloucestershire) 1925 [Bacon].
Printed sources: Bacon (The Morris Ring), 1974; p. 78. Callaghan (Hardcore English), 2007; p. 43. Mallinson (Mally's Cotswold Morris Book), 1988, vol. 2; No. 34, p. 17.
Recorded sources: