Annotation:White Joak (The)

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WHITE JOAK/JOKE, THE. AKA – “White Jack.” English, Jig. England, Northumberland. D Major (Walsh): G Major (Bush). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. There were several tunes named in association with the popular “Black Joke,” with different colours specified in the title: white, brown, green, etc. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of the tune in print in Robert Ross's 1780 collection (p. 38), however,“The White Joak” appeared much earlier in Walsh’s Lancashire Jiggs, Hornpipes, Joaks, etc. (c. 1730), as well as Walsh’s Dancing Master (1731), and subsequently in several ballad operas. Samuel Bayard finds it under the title “White Lime” in Nicholas Bennett’s Alawon fy Ngwlad (I, p. 45). It also appears in the manuscript collection of Captain George Bush (1753?-1797), an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, believed to have been copied from a now-lost fife tutor printed in Philadelphia in 1776 by Hall and Sellers. Kate Van Winkler Keller says the tune dates from the 1720’s and was used throughout the 18th century as a vehicle for songs and dances. Samuel Bayard (in his article “A Miscellany of Tune Notes,” Studies in Folklore, pg. 170) finds a version of the tune printed under the title “White Lime” in Nicholas Bennett’s Welsh publication Alawon fy Ngwlad (1896, I, p. 45). The parts are asymmetrical in William Vickers’ Northumbrian version of 1770, the first having eight bars while the second has twelve. Vickers also has repeated ‘tag’ measures at the end of each part. Source for notated version: the Bush MS [Keller].

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1), 1782; No. 36, p. 13. Keller (Fiddle Tunes from the American Revolution), 1992; p. 16. Offord (John of the Greeny Cheshire Way), 1985; No. 107. Seattle (Great Northern/William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 207.

Recorded sources: Shy Music SHYCD1, Stewart Hardy – “Tod’s Assembly.”