Annotation:Twenty-Eighth of January
X:1 T:Twenty-Eighth of January T:28th of January N:From the playing of Franklin George (W.Va.), who had the tune from an N:older fiddler, Jim Farthing. Recorded in the field in 2008 by Mark Crabtree. M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel D: D:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/twenty-eighth-january Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:Ador A,2^CE DDFA|A,D^CE D2D2|GB-cB AF-ED|GB-cB AF-ED| A,2^CE DDFD|A,D^CE D2DD|"*"GBea fd-BG|EA A2 A4:|| |:e2a2abag|eg-ab a2 g2-|gdga- bagf|efga bagf| e-a3 abag|eg-ab a2ge|df-af edBA|EAAA A4:|| P:Substitution: "*"GBea Ad-BG||
TWENTY EIGHTH OF JANUARY. AKA and see "Miller's Reel (1)," "Twenty Second of February (The)." American, Reel (cut time). USA, West Virginia. A Dorian (Am). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Silberberg): AABB (most versions). Alan Jabbour detects the title of this tune as a condensation of the names of two other tunes; the well‑known "The Eighth of January" (the date of Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans) and "The Twenty Second of February" (the date of Washington’s birthday and the title that "Miller's Reel" appears under in George Knauff's 1839 publication Virginia Reels). He believes "The Twenty Eighth of January" to be a minor version of "Miller's Reel," and begs comparison with Indiana fiddler John Summer's "Same Time Today as it was Yesterday." A few older fiddlers suggested that the 28thof January is the date that Napoleon began his disastrous retreat from Russia, however, historically this is not correct as Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow in October, 1812. The tale seems simply to be a condensation of “Bonaparte’s Retreat” stories with this tune. Modern ‘revival’ fiddlers source the tune from Bluefield, West Virginia, fiddler Franklin George, who learned it from his mentor Jim Farthing. Farthing was a fiddler from Virginia near the North Carolina border who had moved to West Virginia for mining related jobs and who performed carpentry with George’s father.
