The Old Red Barn: A Song History
"The Old Red Barn" is a 6/8 tune, classed as either a jig or a quadrille, with a following among fiddlers in Canada and the northern United States.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive cross-references it with "The Little Red Barn" and "Little Red Wagon," the latter being the name it took on in the Midwest.[1] Citing fiddler Chad Miller, the same source says older players in central New York State favor it, and that one of them, at least, gave it the name "Red Barn Quadrille."[1]
Adriaen van Ostade, The Barn, etching, 1647. A Dutch barn rather than a red one, shown for the tune's title.
The Ohio fiddler John Baltzell recorded "The Old Red Barn Medley Quadrille" for Edison in New York on September 8, 1923, accompanied on piano by John F. Burckhardt.[1][2] The tune archive reports a view that this record, by itself, accounts for how far the melody spread.[1] In Canada, the radio and television fiddler Don Messer made it a regular part of his recordings and broadcasts, among them a 1953 Apex 78, and Paul Gifford finds it fairly widespread among older fiddlers in Michigan and Ontario.[1] Larry Conger's Flat-Picked Fiddle Tunes, a collection of fiddle tunes published by Fingers Of Steel, includes a tune listed as "The Old Red Barn," in DAD tuning.[3]
Browse more tunes like this: Old-Time & Fiddle Tunes Dulcimer Tab
Sources
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Old Red Barn (The)".
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Edison matrix 9148. The old red barn medley quadrille / John Baltzell ; John F. Burckhardt".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Flat-Picked Fiddle Tunes".
- Image: Adriaen van Ostade, The Barn, etching, 1647. The Cleveland Museum of Art.