Annotation:Bonniest Lass in a' the World (1) (The)

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BONNIEST LASS IN A' THE WORLD [1], THE. AKA and see "Hamilla." Scottish, Scots Measure and Air (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB'. The song appears in numerous 18th century publications, beginning with Alexander Stuart's Musick for Allan Ramsey's Collection of Scots Songs (Edinburgh, 1724). It also appears in Joseph Mitchell's 1731 ballad opera The Highland Fair; or, Union of the Clans, John Watts' Musical Miscellany, vol. 6 (London, 1731), William Thompson's Orpheus Caledoneus (London, 1733), and James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion (London, 1760), among other publications. "Bonniest Lass in all the World" also can be found on various song sheets and in fiddlers' manuscript collections on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, it was published in Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 2 (New York, 1817).

The melody was employed as the air to the song "Hamilla" in James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum vol. 2 (1788).

Source for notated version: Sterling Baker (b. Mid-1940's, Morell, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island; now resident of Montague) [Perlman].

Printed sources: Gow (Vocal Melodies of Scotland), c. 1800. Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 131. McGibbon (Scots Tunes, book III), 1762; p. 61. McGlashan (Collection of Scots Measures), 177?; p. 10. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 2), 1760; p. 9. Perlman (Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; p. 206. Pringle (A Second Collection of Strathspeys, Reels & Jiggs &c.), c. 1805.

Recorded sources:

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