Providence Reel: A Song History
The Providence Reel is an Irish reel in D major, also known simply as "The Providence" and, in one early printing, as "The Rossport Reel."[1] Alan Ng's index of Irish tunes credits it to John McGrath,[2] a button accordionist, fiddler and teacher (1900–1955) from Rossport in County Mayo who spent most of his life in New York.[1] According to McGrath's nephew Vincent, McGrath composed the tune and sent it to Jerry O'Brien for his Boston collection Irish Folk Dance Music, where it was printed under the Rossport title; the Traditional Tune Archive still marks his authorship with a question mark.[1]
Market Square, Providence, Rhode Island, During the Great September Gale, black crayon and pastel with graphite, 1815. A view of Providence, Rhode Island, the city the reel is named for; it has no connection to the tune.
The Providence name has a story of its own. The Traditional Tune Archive relates that Michael Coleman played the reel for Lad O'Beirne and Louis Quinn on a train to a 1940 wedding in Providence, Rhode Island.[1] Telling the story to Mick Moloney in 1977, Quinn recalled that Coleman had no name for it, so the fiddlers named it after the city; Quinn did not name a composer.[1]
New York fiddler Paddy Reynolds recorded it as "Providence" in 1971, and Sean Ryan's recordings followed in the early 1970s.[1][2] Later versions include Matt Molloy and Sean Keane's Contentment Is Wealth (1985) and Frankie Gavin's Fierce Traditional, and it is printed in session collections such as Dave Mallinson's 100 Essential Irish Session Tunes.[1][2] Aaron O'Rourke includes it in Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2, a Fingers Of Steel book that arranges jigs, reels and polkas from Irish sessions for mountain dulcimer, all in DAD tuning, with separate song PDFs and MP3 recordings.[3]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Providence Reel".
- irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Providence Reel".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Aaron O'Rourke, Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2".
- Image: Market Square, Providence, Rhode Island, During the Great September Gale, black crayon and pastel with graphite, 1815. The Cleveland Museum of Art.