Annotation:New Shields Lasses

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NEW SHIELDS LASSES. AKA and see "Lasses of Berwick," "Mrs. Rose of Kilravock's Jig." English, Jig. England, Northumberland. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. A version of the melody appears in London publisher David Rutherford's Rutherford's Compleat Collection of 200 of the Most Celebrated Country Dances (1756) as "Lasses of Berwick," and as "Mrs. Rose of Kilravock's Jigg" in Donald Grant's (c. 1760-c. 1839) 1790 collection. Mrs Elizabeth Rose of Kilravock (1747–1815) was a literary woman and a correspondent of Robert Burns, who dined with the Roses at Kilravock on two occasions during his highland tour of 1787. In Memoires of a Highland Lady (1814) she was remembered:

We had visitors too, people calling early, before luncheon; Mrs Rose of Kilravock, the dowager, was one of them. An extraordinary woman, once a beauty and still a wit, who was matronising two elderly young ladies, West Indians of large fortunes, and amusing them and every one else with her clever eccentricities and tales of her brilliant youth. She had been often at Kinrara [House] in former days with Jacky Gordon, the particular friend of the Duchess [of Gordon].

Source for notated version: William Vickers' 1770 music manuscript collection [1] (Northumberland) [Seattle].

Printed sources: Seattle (Great Northern/William Vickers), 1987, Part 3; No. 578.

Recorded sources:

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