Maid Behind The Bar: A Song History
"The Maid Behind the Bar" is an Irish reel, usually played in D major in two repeated parts.[1] It has collected a long list of alternative names, and the Tune Archive traces many of them to before the 78 rpm record.[1] By the archive's account, its earliest printed appearances are in Ryan's Mammoth Collection of 1883, as "Indy's Favorite" and "Judy's Reel," while a piper and fiddler from County Leitrim, Stephen Grier, entered it without a title in his manuscript collection of about the same date.[1] Harding's collection of 1897 printed it again as "Ratification."[1]
Giovanni Volpato, etching of a barmaid filling mugs while others drink at a table, 1760–70. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.
Edward Herborn and James Wheeler, an accordion and banjo duo, recorded it for Columbia in 1916.[1] Accordionist John Kimmel included it, as "The Bartender," in a 1920 medley for Edison, and flute player John Sheridan recorded it for Victor in 1928 as "Maid Behind the Barrel."[1] In 1923 the Sligo fiddler James Morrison recorded it in New York for Gennett, as the final tune of a medley, under the label title "Haymaker"; the Tune Archive credits Morrison, together with piper Tom Ennis, with making both the tune and its name popular.[1]
Today it is a staple of the session repertoire, called by the Tune Archive "one of the most ubiquitous tunes in modern Irish sessions."[1] It turns up in standard teaching and session collections such as Dave Mallinson's 100 Essential Irish Session Tunes and David Brody's The Fiddler's Fakebook.[2]
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