Annotation:Norton's Favorite
X:1 T:Norton's Best Hornpipe T:Norton's Favorite M:C L:1/8 R:Hornpipe S:Howe - 1000 Jigs and Reels (c. 1867) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G (3d/e/f/ | g>dB>d e>cA>F | G>FG>B A>FD>C | B,>DG>F E>cA>G | F>d^c>e d>de>f | g>dB>d e>cA>F | G>FG>B A>FD>C | B,>DG>F E>cA>F | GzGzGz :: zG | A>GA>B c>Bc>d | e>de>f g2d2 | g>fe>d c>BA>G | F>d^c>e d>de>f | g>dB>d e>cA>F | G>FG>B A>FD>C | B,>DG>F E>cA>F | GzGzGz :|]
NORTON'S FAVORITE. AKA - "Norton's Best Hornpipe," "Northon's Hornpipe." AKA and see "Amazon," "Farmer's Joy Hornpipe," "Old Timer Clog," "Queen's Hornpipe (3)," "Remembrance of Dublin," "Spring Garden (1) (The)." American, Hornpipe. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Can be used as a Clog" (Cole). The tune is included by Boston publisher Elias Howe (c. 1867) in a section of tunes with the heading: "As played by Jimmy Norton, the Boss Jig Player," with the note that a 9-part arrangement can be found in his publication Howe's Full Quadrille Orchestra. New York musician, writer and researcher Don Meade informs that Norton was a Boston, Massachusetts, fiddler grew up in a minstrel show family troupe called the Norton Juvenile Minstrels, and was onstage from childhood. There were numerous 'Juvenile Minstrel' troupes, including the "Original Juvenile Minstrels," "Wilson's Juvenile Minstrels," "Seller's Juvenile Minstrels" and others. There was also a James Norton who was a member briefly of Leavitt & Curran's Minstrels when they made their debut in December, 1866, in New Bedford, Mass. Paul Wells says "Norton is easily traced in directories from the early 1860's to the early 1890's. Often his business address was the same as Howe's" [1].
The clog/hornpipe appears as "Remembrance of Dublin," "Old Timer Clog" and, slightly altered, as "Amazon Hornpipe" in later Howe company publications, Ryan's Mammoth Collection and White's Unique Collection. See also Francis O'Neill's reworking of "Norton's Favorite" for his "Spring Garden (1) (The)", printed in Music of Ireland (1903).
The ultimate source for these hornpipe variants seems to be "Spring Gardens Hornpipe," an English hornpipe that enjoyed some popularity in the first half of the 19th century and was entered into several musicians' manuscript collections.
- ↑ PAUL F. WELLS (2010). Elias Howe, William Bradbury Ryan, and Irish Music in Nineteenth-Century Boston. Journal of the Society for American Music, 4, p. 417.