Bonnets o' Blue (1)

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Theme code Index	35 34 11 31
Also known as
Composer/Core Source
Region	England
Genre/Style	English, Morris
Meter/Rhythm	Country Dance, Jig/Quadrille
Key/Tonic of	F
Accidental	1 flat
Mode	Ionian (Major)
Time signature	6/8
History
Structure	ABB AABB AACC AACC AA
Editor/Compiler	Biography:Lionel Bacon
Book/Manuscript title	Book:Morris Ring (The)
Tune and/or Page number	p. 85
Year of publication/Date of MS	1974
Artist
Title of recording
Record label/Catalogue nr.
Year recorded
Media
Score ()

BONNETS O' BLUE [1]. English, Morris Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major (Mallinson): F Major (Bacon). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB, AABB, AACC, AACC, AA. From the village of Bledington, Gloucestershire, in England's Cotswolds. Bacon notes there is some doubt about the modality of the tune: Cecil Sharpe collected it in 1909 from Charles Benfield who played it with flattened 7th in the third measure of the 'A' part and the 7th measure of the 'B' part, however, around 1924, when collected by Dr. Kenworthy Schofield from the same informant, the 7th was consistently flattened. The tune is not the same as "Bonnets So Blue."

The portrait of a fiddler on Peter Kennedy's original 'Fiddler's Tune-Book volumes (by artist A. van Anrooy) depicts Charles Benfield, the fiddler for the Bledington morris men in the second half of the 19th century. Benfield started out by playing the pipe and tabor, instruments he had 'inherited' from the renowned Sherbourne and Northleach musician Jim 'the laddie' Simpson, who had succumbed to an overdose of alcohol in 1856. The fiddler became a key figure in the Bledington morris tradition, eventually leading the "junior side" of dancers born in the 1860's, men who survived to pass on their tradition to larger audiences when collectors visited in the 1930's.

Printed sources: Bacon (The Morris Ring), 1974; p. 85. Mallinson (Mally's Cotswold Morris Book), 1988, vol. 2; No. 43, p. 21.

X: 1
T:Bonnets o' Blue, Bledington
M:6/8
L:1/8
A:Bledington
P:A(AB)2(AC)2
K:F
P:A
|:CDE F2G |ABA GAG   |FDE  F2G|A>GF F3:|
P:B
|:AGA c2A |AGF G2F/G/|AcA  GFG|AGF  D3 |
CDE F2G |ABA GAG   |FDE  F2G|A>GF F3:|
P:C
|:(2AG A2B|c3A3|(2AG F2A|G3 (2FG|(2Ac A3 |G3(2FG|
AGF  D3 |CDE F2G |ABA GAG   |FDE  F2G|A>GF F3:|