Many years ago I heard and partly learnt a tune called the birthday jig from on old LP called " Ghost of his former self " I think it was. A great tune but I have lost it totally. Can anybody help me get the notation for it. I have exhausted all the channels I know. I would be truly grateful.
Well, I don’t know the tune, but the album (by Devilish Merry) is still available here from L.E. McCullough. Might be one of his tunes, I suppose, but I don’t recognize the name.
This tune was composed by mandolinist-guitarist-bouzoukist-now fiddler Larry Edelman, with whom I played in a group called Devilish Merry in the late 1970s in Pittsburgh. Larry went on to become arguably the best contra-square dance caller in the known universe and is now in Denver and plays with The Percolators, Soda Rock Ramblers and some band that does Native American-early Hispanic tunes from 1800s Colorado. He was always versatile and multi-idiomatic.
See http://home.earthlink.net/~thepercolators
And Devilish Merry is back, too. http://www.devilishmerry.net
He composed The Birthday Jig on his birthday. Claimed he dreamed it, woke up and plinked it out. We learned it and added it to the repertoire right away. Isn’t it a great tune? And not hard to learn, either.
I’ll whip up an ABC-PDF for you and send it along later this morning. Got a whistle lesson to teach here in a few minutes.
Very best,
L.E. McCullough