By John Baldry

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY has been popularised in bluegrass music by banjo players, initially inspired no doubt by Eric Weissberg’s melodic arrangement on the Elektra recording, New Dimensions in Bluegrass. (This disc was repackaged as the Deliverance banjo LP, which is still available in CD format.)

However, the banjo players who pick this tune a la Weissberg, in the key of G, have obscured the fact that it was originally a fiddle tune played in D. In fact, the title harks back to 8th January 1815, and celebrates the defeat of the British at the Battle of New Orleans, which effectively put an end to an excursion into US territory which we Brits began in 1812. Readers of my age and older will also remember the hit song, The Battle of New Orleans, way back in 1959, which married the fiddle tune melody with words by (so I read somewhere) Jimmy Driftwood. The big hit in the States was sung by Johnny Horton, but our own Lonnie Donegan’s cover version did better over here. (Incidentally, I tried to find a reissue in our local Virgin record store, to check on the composer credit. However, the magic words, “Lonnie Donegan” and “skiffle” predictably failed to stir a flicker of recognition on the face of the teenager at the enquiry counter. “Was it some sort of easy listening music?” she suggested. Come to think of it, they’re recruiting some extremely young policeman nowadays, too.)

The arrangement of The Eighth of January which I’ve tabbed here for mandolin is based on the fiddle tune in D, which you can find in many fiddle tune books (e.g. The

Fiddler’s Fakebook, published by Oak, an invaluable reference source). The first 16 bars (counting from the double bar line) present the basic melody of the A and B parts, each played twice. For a bit of variety, I’ve then added a low variation of the A part (follow the repeats to play this twice) and a high variation of the B part - which will be published next time. The low A part takes you into mandola territory, and I’ve had to alter the melody a bit because you can’t go lower than G in standard mandolin tuning. The high B part moves up to third position (first finger at the 5th fret) and is more of a Monroe-style interpretation.

Because so much mandolin playing is related to fiddle music, it is really worthwhile for mandolin players to learn to read standard musical notation. This will open up huge swathes of territory in the form of fiddle tune books. The above-mentioned Fiddler’s Fakebook is a real investment, and far better value than the parallel Mandolin Picker’s Fakebook. The latter has only about half the number of tunes, which are just tablature versions of tunes in the Fiddler’s Fakebook. A visit to your local music shop will also enable you to look over the large range of Irish and Scottish fiddle tune books, such as O’Neill’s Music of Ireland and the various Kerr’s collections of Scottish tunes. Practising fiddle tunes is also good for developing technique - it can be tough on the left hand, and even more so on the right, because the bow and the flatpick are such different devices. So keep practising! Talking of which, it’s about time for me to sign off and get out the old 8-string...

John Baldry, Crawley, Sussex.

Updated 23rd Jan 1999