Irish and Scottish Dance Tunes and Airs
for Fingerstyle Guitar
©2025 Fulica Records FCD-110
Available from the Online Store as:
• Audio CD
1. CHILD OF MY HEART
2. THE BOYS OF BLUE HILL
3. MY DARLING ASLEEP/HASTE TO THE WEDDING
4. MISS FORBES FAREWELL/POLL HALFPENNY
5. SERGEANT EARLY’S DREAM/CHIEF O’NEILL’S
6. THE FLOWERS OF BELFAST
7. PLANXTY KELLY
8. THE BLACKBIRD
9. HEWLETT/SPANISH CLOAK
10. FANTALLADA/THE BOYS OF BALLISODARE
11. PRETTY GIRL MILKING A COW
12. NO LOVE
13. MISS McLEOD’S REEL
14. THE WEXFORD CAROL/THE ACE AND DEUCE OF PIPING
15. PORT NA BPÚCAI (THE FAERIE LAMENT)
16. THE RAKES OF WATERLOO
17. THE SOUTH WIND/IRISH WASHERWOMAN
18. PLANXTY IRWIN
19. THE KID ON THE MOUNTAIN
20. THE DODDER BANK
21. RORATE
22. CALLAGHAN’S HORNPIPE
23. CAROLAN’S CONCERTO
Mastered by Joe Lizzi at van Alst Sound, Long Island City, NY
Photo of Duck Baker by Lovat Fraser
Graphics by Saana Baker
Photo of Duck Baker by Lovat Fraser
Thanks to Stefan Grossman for permission to use tracks 13 &€17 (2nd tune) which originally appeared on Irish, Reels, Jigs, Hornpipes And Airs. The generous support of Maureen Smith has made this release possible
My purpose here is to present another collection of (mostly) Irish and Scottish tunes to compliment my 1980 record The Kid On The Mountain and the 2000 follow-up, My Heart Belongs To Jenny. Only two of the performances collected here has been previously released.
Of the rest, I tried for the most part to avoid including titles that appeared on the two records named above. The exceptions are tracks 10, 11, 19 and 22. “Pretty Girl Milking A Cow” was included on My Heart Belongs To Jenny, while the others appeared on The Kid On The Mountain. These live performances have a different kind of feel from the studio versions.
There are five tunes that have not appeared on any release I have made, and a couple of others that I never recorded solo. Many of the remaining titles did appear on anthologies, but the performances collected here are superior, apart from the audio quality. The rest are unreleased performances of tunes that came out on records that were not focused on Irish and Scottish material.
The Tunes – Five of the tunes were composed by the Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738), who is still considered the greatest composer of Irish tunes. “Carolan’s Concerto” was for years the most often heard of all the bard’s tunes. And “Hewlett,” “Planxty Irwin,” “‘The Faerie Queen” and “Planxty Kelly” have all gotten a fair amount of well-deserved attention in recent years, but when I arranged them only the first two were widely played, and fingerstyle guitarists were just discovering Carolan.
Both of the traditional Irish airs, “Pretty Girl” and “Port na bPúcai” are well known, though the former is sung more often than it is played. “Miss Forbes’ Farewell” is Scottish, and the charming “Fanteladda” Norwegian. “Child of My Heart” and “Sergeant Early’s Dream” are dance tunes that have been slowed down to well below dance tempo.
There are unissued versions of four of my own tunes, all of which came out originally on records not focused on traditional music. “The Rakes of Waterloo” is a jig with some American syncopation thrown in, and “The Flowers of Belfast” is a slow air which features improvisation on the harmonic sequence. I’m not sure how tunes like “The Dodder Bank” and “No Love” should be categorized, but they were clearly inspired by Irish tradition.
I have included two live versions of Christmas carols, “The Wexford Carol” and “Rorate,” both of which appear on my Christmas record The Salutation. The first is Irish and the second Scottish. For some reason the Scots don’t have many carols, and the Irish almost none. As to the dance tunes, I have for a long time been more inclined to group a slow tune with a faster one than to play sets of reels, jigs, or hornpipes, and there is only one such set here. I have indicated dance types in the track listings, but it’s not as if I expect many people will dance to this record, and in fact my interpretations of the tempos might make that problematic. Like most American traditional musicians, I blur the distinction between reels and hornpipes, often playing both with a rhythmic feel that’s closer to that of swing jazz than to anything in contemporary Irish music.
Hornpipes are generally supposed to have a similar sort of swing, but in fact many Irish musicians play them with a much less accented flow. On this record, “The Boys of Blue Hill” is a good example of the swingy approach. At the other end of the spectrum is the version of “Poll Halfpenny,” which I play just as I would play a reel.
My intention in playing Irish tunes was never to be true to any Irish fingerstyle tradition, something which didn’t even exist when I was working out an approach. My intention was to adapt the American fingerpicking style to Irish tunes, many of which I first heard played by Appalachian fiddlers and banjo players. Of course I took note of what British guitarists like Davy Graham, John Renbourn, and Dave Evans were doing, as well as the brilliant French player, Pierre Bensusan, and the way I ornament the tunes is strongly influenced by what I heard Irish and Scottish musicians doing on fiddles, flutes, pipes and squeezeboxes.
Duck Baker
Reading, Berks, December, 2025
TRACKS 19 & 22: May 26, 1978, The Other Side of the Tracks, Auburn, WA TRACKS 13 & 17 (2nd tune): Late 1978, Livingston Studios, Barnet, Nick Kinsey, engineer TRACK 23: April 23, 1988, Sturbridge, recorded by John Atkins TRACK 21: September 19, 1988, Trysull, recorded by John Atkins TRACK 16: October 27, November 2, 1988, Concord, CA, Dix Bruce, engineer TRACK 4: December 12, 1996, The Prism Coffeehouse, Charlottesville, VA, recorded by Fred Boyce TRACKS 6 & 20: June 27, 1992, McCabe’s, Long Beach, recorded by James Jensen TRACK 5: March 2, 1997, UCC Sanctuary Church, Harrisonburg, VA, recorded by Ron Snyder TRACK 10: Spring 1997, Verona, Italy TRACK 11: September 25, 1999, McCabe’s, Santa Monica TRACK 14: December 22, 2002, Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, CA TRACKS 7 & 18: 2007, West Beach Studios, North Wales, Mark Pavey, engineer TRACK 15: July 25, 2008, The Bimhaus, Amsterdam TRACK 8: June 20th, 2010, Star Pines, Tokyo ALL OTHER TRACKS: late ’90s, Mix-O-Lydian Studios, Lafayette NJ, Don Sternecker, engineer