Rickett's Hornpipe: A Song History

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“Rickett’s Hornpipe” is a two-strain hornpipe, usually in D major, played in England, Ireland and North America.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive takes the Rickett of the title to be John Bill Ricketts, a circus promoter who prospered in the young United States through the 1790s.[1] Circus historian Dominique Jando records that Ricketts, born at Bilston in 1769, gave his first Philadelphia show at Market and Twelfth Streets on April 3, 1793.[2] The Pennsylvania historical marker at that spot credits him with the country’s first full circus show and notes that President Washington attended later that season.[3] A HistoryNet profile connects a fiddle tune carrying his name to his renown for performing a hornpipe atop a galloping horse.[4] The melody itself appears earlier, though: the Tune Archive lists a 1781 Edinburgh printing by Alexander McGlashan under the title “Danced by Aldridge,” and in the sources consulted here nothing records how Ricketts’ name became attached to it.[1]

Drawing of a rider in a top hat on a high-stepping horse in a circus ring

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Circus: The Spanish Walk, graphite, black and colored pastel, and charcoal on paper, 1899. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A circus rider of a later century, shown for the circus link in the tune's name.

Under the Ricketts name the tune turns up in the manuscript book of American musician Milton Barlow, begun around 1802, under the titles “Rickett’s Hornpipe” and “Rickett’s Reel.”[1] It was printed in the third volume of Riley’s Flute Melodies (1820) and, in Boston, in Elias Howe’s Musician’s Companion (1843), where it closes a quadrille.[1] Folklorist Samuel Bayard called it “exceedingly well-known,” and it travelled under other names: Cecil Sharp took down a version titled “Six Hand Reel” from Oxfordshire concertina player William Kimber in 1908, and the Tune Archive lists a 1931 Columbia recording by the Skillet Lickers issued as “Tanner’s Hornpipe.”[1]

Collector Mike Yates observed that the tune was more at home in northern cities, yet it is among the small number of tunes played as a hornpipe in the South.[1] Fiddler Luther Strong played it at Hazard, Kentucky, on October 18, 1937, for the Alan and Elizabeth Lomax Kentucky collection.[5] That performance was later issued on the Library of Congress album American Fiddle Tunes, compiled by Alan Jabbour.[6]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Rickett's Hornpipe".
  2. Circopedia: "John Bill Ricketts" (Dominique Jando).
  3. ExplorePAHistory.com: "Ricketts' Circus" historical marker.
  4. HistoryNet: "Father of the American Circus".
  5. Alan Lomax Kentucky Recordings: "Rickett's Hornpipe" (Luther Strong, 1937).
  6. Library of Congress: "American Fiddle Tunes".