Farmer's Jamboree: A Song History

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"Farmer's Jamboree" is a jig in two repeated parts, which the Traditional Tune Archive gives in A major and classes as Canadian and American, listing it with New England tunes.[1] The earliest printing listed there is Harry E. Jarman's Cornhusker's Book of Square Dance Tunes of 1944, and the Tune Archive notes that Jarman credits the tune's composition to John Burt.[1] The Canadian Encyclopedia names a pianist, Johnny Burt, among the members of George Wade and His Cornhuskers, a Toronto country dance band that began broadcasting on CFRB in 1928, and says Jarman published albums of pieces Wade played, some arranged by Burt.[2] Later printings listed by the Tune Archive include Welling's Hartford Collection of 1976 and a 1985 Ottawa Valley collection drawn from fiddler Dawson Girdwood.[1]

Night painting of farm workers husking corn by firelight in a farmyard, with a cabin, fences and a wagon wheel around them.

David Gilmour Blythe, Corn Husking, oil on canvas, ca. 1863–64. A husking bee by night, shown for its farm subject; it has no connection to the tune.

The same jig appears in the Tune Archive as "Cape Breton Favorite," given in G major, with a note that it has been printed as "Farmer's Jamboree" and that Prince Edward Island fiddlers call it "Daisy's Jig"; its entry there names no composer.[3] The Tune Archive cites Perlman's 1996 study of Prince Edward Island fiddle music, which reports that Hector MacDonald of Bangor, Kings County, played it often on radio broadcasts in the 1930s and 1940s.[4] The Cape Breton fiddler Johnny Wilmot (1916–1993) was at home in both the Irish and Scottish styles of the island, and the Tune Archive lists him among those who recorded the tune.[5][3] As "Cape Breton Favourite," paired with "The Whisky Jig," it appears on Another Side of Cape Breton, a compilation of his recordings from 1951 to 1964.[6]

Larry Conger includes it in Flat-Picked Fiddle Tunes, a mountain dulcimer collection of fiddle tunes in DAD tuning, chosen as ones most players don't yet know, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Farmer's Jamboree"

Browse more tunes like this: Old-Time & Fiddle Tunes Dulcimer Tab

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Farmer's Jamboree (The)".
  2. The Canadian Encyclopedia: "George Wade and His Cornhuskers".
  3. Traditional Tune Archive: "Cape Breton Favorite".
  4. Traditional Tune Archive: "Daisy's Jig".
  5. Cranford Publications: "Cape Breton Fiddler: Johnny Wilmot".
  6. Cranford Publications: "Johnny Wilmot: Another Side of Cape Breton".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Flat-Picked Fiddle Tunes".
  8. Image: David Gilmour Blythe, Corn Husking, oil on canvas, ca. 1863–64. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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