Annotation:Sheep Skin and Bee's Wax

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SHEEP SKIN AND BEES WAX. AKA and see “Aunt Jemima’s Plaster.” Canadian, Reel. Canada, Québec. A Dorian/Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The tune is from the playing of the Irish community of Valcartier, northwest of Québec City, particularly fiddler Eric Corrigan (b. 1931), and is traditional. Eric’s cousin Keith Corrigan (b. 1933), an accordion player also from Valcartier, learned the tune from his father, Patrick. This ditty was sung to the melody when they were children, according to Hart & Sandell:

Sheepskin and beeswax,
It made the mighty plaster
The more you tried to get it off
The more it stuck too faster.

The tune has been recorded by La Bottine Souriante and by Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll (who had it from fiddler Lisa Ornstein and Denis Pépin). Normally a 16 measure reel, La Bottine Souriante recorded it as a 32 bar reel, doubling the parts. The group has been so influential that Montréal fiddlers mostly play it in the 32 bar version, according to Quebec fiddler Pascal Gemme.

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - Keith Corrigan, via Lisa Ornstein [Hart & Sandell].

Printed sources : - Hart & Sandell (Dance ce Soir), 2001; No. 43, p. 77.

Recorded sources: La Bottine souriante – “a Mistrine” (1994). La Bottine souriante – “En spectacle” (1996). Lisa Ornstein & Denis Pepin – “Danseries de la belle provcince” (1984). -

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