In Which it Pours

At a country/bluegrass jam this afternoon, one of the musicians commented, "You can go for years without meeting any new fiddlers, and then all of a sudden, you'll run across six of them." The same must go for fiddle tunes; having posted Shetland music last night, I return to pass along a new tune that one of the guitar pickers at the jam today had just learned and was trying to teach me. I needn't mention, I am extremely thankful for YouTube--despite the man's patience in playing and replaying the tune at a clear, precise, and reasonable speed, the notes trickled, more or less, "through my head, like water from a sieve." But I did manage to recall the title, so here are a couple of versions of the "Temperance Reel". Kind of an interesting piece in that it is one of a handful (?) of apparently Irish tunes which have a degree of a regular following in the bluegrass world. (You do hear a good deal about bluegrass' Irish and Scottish roots, but it's a little rarer, at least in my experience, to run across a tune that retains such a close resemblance with the versions played in those traditions).

Anyway, here is a very bluegrassy version, complete with a couple of smashing banjo breaks by a group called High LoneSome Bluegrass Band.


And here is something even more unexpected (and I'm not just talking about the hat), a fluent harmonica version by Buddy Greene, Jeff Taylor (accordion/piano) and Tricia Walker (percussion) preceded by "Blackberry Blossom".