Annotation:Beauty Spot (The)

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BEAUTY SPOT, THE (An Ball Seirce). AKA and see "Colonel Taylor's," "Johnny Gorman's." Irish, Reel. D Mixolydian (Breathnach, Feldman & O'Doherty): D Dorian (Mulvihill). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Breathnach, Mulvihill): AA'B (Feldman & O'Doherty). The tune was recorded by piper Bernard Delaney on cylinder recordings for Edison. Delaney was the brother-in-law of Captain Francis O'Neill, and O'Neill found him a job on the Chicago police force. O'Neill was critical of Delaney, however, not for his piping ability, which he respected, but for his miserliness with tunes which O'Neill feared would by lost when Delaney died. Perhaps Delaney withheld this reel, as it was not included in any of O'Neill's published collections.

A version, called "Johnny Gorman's," honors a professional uilleann piper and fiddler from County Roscommon. Gorman, or Jack the Piper as he was known, was from Derrylahon, and became an itinerant musician who roamed the counties of Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon and Leitrim, playing and teaching until his tragic death outside Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim in 1917. Gorman was also an influence on the great Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman, who incorporated the piper's ornamentation into his own fiddle playing. The tune was recorded on a 78 RPM by Dublin piper William N. Andrews in 1930. See also the related "Last Night's Joy" and "Tailor's Thimble (3) (The)."

Source for notated version: fiddler Tommy Potts (Ireland) [Breathnach]; L. Donnelly [Mulvihill]; fiddler Simon Doherty (County Donegal) [Feldman & O'Doherty].

Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ I), 1963; No. 135, p. 54. Feldman & O'Doherty (The Northern Fiddler), 1979; p. 105 (appears as "Untitled Reel"). Mulvihill (1st Collection), 1986; No. 152, p. 41.

Recorded sources: New Republic 2333 (78 rpm), Michael Coleman and Michael Walsh with pianist Arthur Kenna (1922). Piping Pig Productions PPPCD001, Jimmy O'Brien-Moran - "Seán Reid's Favourite" (1996).