Soldier’s Joy

Recorded by Jack Armstrong and his Northumbrian Barnstormers under the auspices of the EFDSS

HMV Folk Dance Series: “North Country Dances” E.M.I. 7EG 8455 (1959) Side 2.

Duration: 3 min. .03 sec.

Soldier’s Joy is made up of three tunes: The Soldier’s Joy, Winham’s Reel, and Bracken Rigg.

The Soldier’s Joy.  Properly “The Soldier’s Joy” AMM 32 is a Reel/Scots Measure (D). Single sheet song with music, c. 1760, BUCEM, “When the shrill trumpet sounds on high”. Also with music in Vocal Music, or the Songster’s Companion, c. 1778. Joshua Campbell’s Reels [Glasgow, J. Aird, 1778], 56; McGlashan’s Scots Measures [Edin., N. Stewart, 1781]. Kerr’s Reels 6; Kerr’s Mod. Album 3; Robertson Athole Coll. (1884), 150; Skye (1887) 38. RSCDS 2, 6 [the dance of this name there printed is “still performed in the West of Scotland. Another called ‘Jackey Tar’, danced in Perthshire, is very much like it.”] Words to air: “I am a son of Mars” (Burns, Jolly Beggars). In one of the EFDSS Community Dance Manuals; Scandinavian Dance Music, 2nd ser., as Hornfiffen. Included on a limited ed. LP of English trad. music put out in 1965 by Reg Hall & Bob Davenport (as played by a Norfolk band). Several sets in Bayard, Dance to the Fiddle (1982). O’Neill Music of Ireland (1903), 305 (#1642); HCD1 #8: The Soldier’s Joy; HIA146.

Whinham’s Reel.  [Fiddler’s Companion:]  Composed by Robert Whinham, an itinerant Northumbrian musician, fiddle and dancing master, teacher and composer, who lived between 1814 and 1893. Whinham ended his days in a workhouse in Morpeth where he was registered as a “teacher of music in Morpeth Northumbria).” The only known photograph of him was taken there.

Bracken Rigg. We have been unable to find any information about this piece.

Bracken Rigg

[No information]