Annotation:Dan Sullivan's Favorite (1)
DAN SULLIVAN'S FAVORITE [1]. AKA and see "Johnny with the Queer Thing," "Sailor on the Rock." American, Reel (whole time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The tune, probably Irish in origin, appears under the "Dan Sullivan's..." title in a later publication of Boston music publisher Elias Howe, Musician's Omnibus, No. 7 (1882), although Howe had earlier printed the same tune as an untitled "Favorite Reel" in his 1000 Jigs and Reels (1867). Musicologist Paul Wells believes Howe's later title is associated with Irish fiddler Dan Sullivan, then resident in Boston [1]. Francis O'Neill called "the most famous professional Irish fiddler in the eastern United States...Everybody in Boston and the adjoining towns, and not a few from other parts of this broad land, knew or heard of 'Dan' Sullivan, the great Irish fiddler who departed this life at the end of June, 1912." [2]. Sulllivan was the father of Dan Sullivan who led Dan Sullivan's Shamrock Band in the 1920's and 1930's and who recorded prolifically.
