Jamie Allen: A Song History
"Jamie Allen" carries the name of James Allen, also spelled Allan, an eighteenth-century Northumbrian smallpipes player whom the Traditional Tune Archive dates to about 1734–1810 and credits with adding keys that carried the instrument past a single octave.[1] Sources differ on his early life: a Princeton University Library essay drawing on the Dictionary of National Biography gives 1734 and names his parents as the performer Will Allan and a woman called Betty, often described as a Gypsy, while an article on the ducal pipers of Alnwick Castle places his birth at Rothbury in 1729.[2][3] The Princeton essay says he was official piper to Elizabeth Percy, Countess of Northumberland, for two years and passed most of his life wandering and living by music and theft, but the Alnwick article reports that the Percy archives hold no record of any such appointment.[2][3]
John Center, Northumbrian Small-Pipe, wood, leather, ivory and brass, after 1867. A Northumbrian small-pipe, the kind of instrument James Allen played; this one was made long after his time.
The chronicler John Sykes recorded that Allen was condemned for horse-stealing at the Durham assizes of 1803, that his death sentence was changed to transportation for life but never carried out because of his age and frailty, and that he died in the Durham house of correction on 13 November 1810.[4] A pardon signed by the Prince Regent arrived only after his death.[2] His life was later retold in print: James Thompson's Life of James Allan, with illustrations after Robert Cruikshank, appeared at Newcastle in 1828, and a Glasgow chapbook, History of James Allan, is dated by the National Library of Scotland to 1840–1850.[2][5] The Traditional Tune Archive calls the two biographies written about him "largely fanciful," and the Alnwick article likewise suspects that much in them was invented.[1][3]
The tune linked to his name is a rant in G, also played as a polka or march, and the Tune Archive lists it as "Jimmy Allen" and, in Scotland, "Reel of Tullochgorum," a title it takes care to distinguish from the separate tune "Tullochgorum."[1][6][7] The earliest printing under the Allen name that the Archive lists is the Northumbrian Pipers' Society tunebook of 1936, where it is titled "Jimmy Allen," and Kathryn Tickell recorded it on her 2006 album Strange but True.[1][7] It also settled into New England dancing, turning up in Miller and Perron's 101 Polkas (1978) and New England Fiddlers Repertoire (1983) and accompanying a contra dance of the same name.[7][1] Sue Songer's Portland Collection (1997) calls it an "old New England chestnut," and FolkWorks observes that English session players now treat it as something of a starter tune.[8] Although none of the sources consulted here traces how it reached Galax-style players, Phyllis Gaskins lists it among the G tunes in Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), the follow-up to her A Job Of Journey Work, which presents Galax playing in her own adapted notation with all strings tuned to D, adds directions for DAD tuning, and is published by Fingers Of Steel.[9]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Jamie Allen".
- Princeton University Library, Graphic Arts Collection: "James Allan: Gypsy, Musician and Thief".
- Northumbrian Pipes: "The Ducal Pipers of Alnwick Castle".
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Biography: Jamie Allen".
- University of Guelph Library, Scottish Chapbooks: "History of James Allan, The Celebrated Northumberland Piper".
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Reel of Tullochgorum (1)".
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Jimmy Allen".
- FolkWorks: "Tune History: Jamie Allen".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
- Image: John Center, Northumbrian Small-Pipe, wood, leather, ivory and brass, after 1867. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.