Annotation:Clark's Favorite (2)
Back to Clark's Favorite (2)
CLARK'S FAVORITE [2]. American, Jig. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Randy Miller (2004) attributes the tune to New England fiddler John Adams Taggart (1854-1943), from his "Recollection of a Busy Life" (1938), a typewritten manuscript deposited with the New Hampshire Historical Society (Concord, N.H.). Taggart, born and raised in Sharon, New Hampshire, and was a onetime orchestra leader and composer. Taggart wrote in his ms. that the tunes "were all taught me during my boyhood days in Sharon (N.H.), by the various fiddlers in that vicinity." Miller points out that Sharon is in "the heart of the Monadnock Region of southwestern New Hampshire, where fiddlers and contra dances abound to this day" (pref. iv) [Miller]. The first strain of "Clark's Favorite (2)", however, appears to be a version of the first strain of the Irish jig "Red Stockings (1)"/"Saddle the Pony"/"Draught of Ale (1) (A)."
Source for notated version: New Hampshire Fiddlers' Union [Phillips].
Printed sources: Miller (Fiddler's Throne), 2004; No. 21, p. 25.
Recorded sources: Front Hall FHR-204C, New Hampshire Fiddlers Union - "Music of John Taggart" (1989).