Annotation:Ugly Customer (An)
X:1 T:Ugly Customer, An M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel S:O’Neill – Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907), No. 623 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:A EAcA eAcA|EAce dB B2|EAcA eAcA|afed cABG| EAcA eAcA|EAce dBBg|{b}agae fage|dB ed cA A|| e|{b}agae fefg|afec dBBe|{b}agae fage|dBed cAAe| {b}agae faec|{d}dBcA BF F2|EFED EFAB|ceBd cA A2||
UGLY CUSTOMER, AN (Rocdaire Granda). AKA and see “After the Hare," "Eleventh of October," "Patrick O'Dermot.” Irish, Reel. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. An 'ugly customer', meaning an ill-natured or vicious individual, has been in slang use at least since the mid-19th century. Given the number of policemen in the Chicago music scene during Chief O'Neill's collecting period, one wonders if the title for the tune (presumably from patrolman Kissane) was the result of occupational banter.
As "After the Hare" the reel was published in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), and as "Eleventh of October" in R.M. Levey's Dance Music of Ireland, vol. 2 (1873). The tune also appears as an untitled reel in Brendan Breathnach’s Ceol Rince na hÉireann, vol. 2 (1976, No. 151). The first strain of the strathspey "Duchess of Atholl's Slipper (The)" is similar, although the second parts differ. The resemblance is perhaps incidental and not cognate. Reseracher Conor Ward finds the reel in local manuscripts from County Leitrim and County Longford from the 1880's onwards with Levey's "Eleventh of October" title but also as "Ninth of August (The)." See also the cognate tune "Patrick O'Dermot" in Patrick O'Flannagan's 1860 collection.
