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Acres of Clams
Traditional Tune; Lyrics by (Judge) Francis D. Henry; American Waltz, Air and Contra Dance Tune; Irish, Jig; English, Morris Dance Tune (6/8 time).
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes.
Contents of this page:
1) Acres of Clams - Lyrics written about 1874 by a police court judge, Francis D. Henry, this song achieved prominence decades later through radio-show singer Ivar Haglund, who made it the theme song of Acres of Clams, his flagship seafood restaurant on the Seattle Waterfront's Pier 54.
EARLY DATE: Lyrics written in the 1874 by Francis D. Henry
RECORDING INFO: Pete Seeger, "The Old Settler's Song. Brothers Four. BMOC (Best Music on/off Campus), Columbia CL 1578, LP (196?), cut#B.05 (Old Settler's Song) Greenway, John. Big Rock Candy Mountain. Songs of the American Hobo & Migrato.., Washington WLP 710, LP (195?), cut#B.07. Ransom, Stan. My Long Island Home, Connecticut Peddler, CD (1997), cut# 1. Stracke, Win. Americana, Bally BAL 12013, LP (195?), cut# 9. Tarriers. Tarriers, Glory PG 1200, LP (195?), cut#B.05. Toelken, J. Barre (Barry). Garland of American Folksong, Prestige International INT 13023, LP (196?), cut# 4
OTHER NAMES: “Lay of the Old Settler,” “Old Settler’s Song,” “Rosin the Beau,” "Old Rosin, the Beau," "Rosin the Bow," "Mrs. Kenny," "A Hayseed Like Me," "My Lodging's on the Cold, Cold Ground."
SOURCES: Silber-FSWB, p. 48, "Acres of Clams; Lomax-FSUSA 55, "The Old Settler's Song"; Darling-NAS, pp. 283-284, "Acres of Clams". "Copied...from a MS. evidently written by a skilled fiddler with much musical taste, from Limerick, but the name of the writer nowhere appears" from Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc). [Joyce]: Hogg (Pa., 1948) [Bayard]. Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 620, pg. 546. Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 56-57 and pg. 127 {discord version} (lyrics included, pg. 56-57). Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Song), 1909; No. 352, pg. 162. Laufman (Okay, Let's Try a Contra, Men on the Right, Ladies on the Left, Up and Down the Hall), 1973; pg. 15. Mulvihill (1st Collection), 1986; No. 15, pg. 122. Wade (Mally's North West Morris Book), 1988; pg. 24.
NOTES: Lyrics wed to the fiddle tune “Old Rosin the Bow/Beau”. "Key of A Major (Ford, Joyce): G Major (Bayard, Laufman, Mulvihill, Wade). Standard or AEAE. AB (Bayard, Joyce, Wade): ABB (Ford): AABB (Laufman, Mulvihill). The tune is used for a single step in the North-West England Morris dance tradition. Bayard (1981) notes the air was known to most fiddlers, fifers, and singers in Pennsylvania, as in many parts of the country. He identifies a melody by James Oswald which appears in his 2nd Collection (1740's, pg. 25) as a 6/8 "Gigg," that is extremely close to "Rosin," and he wonders if this was the ancestral tune for the air, or if Oswald himself was influenced by an older air. Further, he says a tune called "Dumfries House" in Gow's Complete Repository (3rd Ed., Part I, pg. 13) ascribed to John Riddle has a 2nd strain that equals "Rosin the Beau," and a Welsh harp tune in Bennett's Alawon fy Ngwlad also is quite close. The Fleishchmann index (1998) gives that the tune was derived from a 17th century Irish tune in 6/4 meter called "On the Cold Ground;" that tune, however, is English, attributed to Matthew Lock from the play The Rivals. The title appears in a list of standard tunes in the square dance fiddler's repertoire, according to A.B. Moore in his History of Alabama, 1934. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40126, Rodney Miller - "Choose Your Partners!: Contra Dance & Square Dance Music of New Hampshire" (1999)." Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc)
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