Annotation:Black and Grey (1) (The)

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BLACK AND GREY [1]. AKA and see "Trip to Kilburn (A)." English, Country Dance Tune (cut time). A Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody was first printed in John Playford's Dancing Master 7th edition (London, 1786) and was retained in all subsequent editions of the long-running series, through the 18th, printed in 1728. It also appears in John Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master, editions of 1718, 1731 and 1754 (London), and Johnson's Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances, vol. 2 (London, 1742). "Black and Grey" appears in the 1790 music manuscript collection of Cheapside, London, musician Thomas Hammersley. The alternate title "Trip to Kilburn" is also in common use today for the melody, stemming from its association with a country dance by that name. The melody is not the similarly-titled Northumbrian tune "Black and the Grey". The tune (as "English Black and Grey" to distinguish it from the Northumbrian tune) was contained in the Northumbrian music manuscript collection of John Smith, dated 1752, which is unfortunately now lost. The contents were copied by 19th century folk-music collector John Stokoe in 1887, when the manuscript was in the possession of Lewis Proudlock. Stokoe's volume Northumbrian Minstrelsy had been printed five year prior, and his interest in Smith’s ms. demonstrates Stokoe's continuing commitment to older Northumbrian music.

Later developments of the tune appear under the titles "Ay as she piss'd she padled it, "Duke of Hamilton's Reel (The)," "Lady Hamilton's Rant," and "Hambleton's Rant."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barlow (Complete Country Dances from Playford's Dancing Master), 1985; No. 239, p. 62. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician No. 14: Songs, Airs and Dances of the 18th Century), 1997; p. 5. Walsh (Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth), London, 1740; No. 81.

Recorded sources:

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