Aly Bain learned how to play the fiddle from Tom Anderson, a Shetland musical heritage fiddler of known by his friends as Muckle Tammie, or “Uncle Tommy”. If you’re like me and you haven’t heard of Shetland before, it is a group of islands north of Scotland. Lerwick, Shetland is where Aly Bain was born. Mr. Bain has recorded several of his own albums and quite a number of them with other artists, plus 4 DVDs. Bain has received many musical awards and honors internationally during his life-long career in music/recording/television. His collaborative efforts have led him to work with other famous musicians than the ones in the St. Anne’s Reel video such as Dan Tyminski from Union Station, Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash, Joan Osborne, and many others. Aly Bain has even received 5 honorary Doctor of Music degrees. [1]
Tonight I was in the mood to hear St. Anne's Reel. I've only heard it before from The Franz Family, which is a gospel-bluegrass group. But there is not a video for them playing this song on YouTube. Instead, I had found Jerry Douglas, (whom I have mentioned from Alison Krauss and Union Station), playing his dobro alongside a few other very talented men. Aly Bain is playing the fiddle, Russ Barenburg is on the guitar, and Todd Parks is on the bass, smiling the whole time. Though I've never heard of the rest of these musicians in my entire life, I'm shocked that this is my first time hearing from them. Perhaps I've heard them without being aware of it, but my goodness does Aly Bain tear up the fiddle! It sounds like he's often fitting 3 notes into one beat, and it doesn't sound cluttered at all; it is very clean, precise, and dazzling all at the same time. I was glad to discover him in this song.
This song has a folk/bluegrass sound. I find that this is because it is a traditional Irish folk song, of which I cannot find approximately how far it dates back in history. There are lyrics to this song, but of the two versions I've heard of it now, I've only heard it played as an instrumental song.
This song is AABB 32-bar form, or else AB binary with 16 counts per section. But to the best of my knowledge I am going to go with the first option, because the second 8 measures of the chorus are exactly the same as the first, and the 4th section the exact same as the 3rd. It is in 2/4 time. This smooth-flowing song has an intro, 6 choruses, and an outro.
There is an 8 measure dobro intro that hardly even hints what the melody is going to be and then suddenly the guitar, string bass, and fiddle join Jerry Douglas on the dobro and we're off. There is no slowing down with these boys. The guitar and fiddle are both playing the melody together as the bass plucks the first beat of every measure and the dobro finds perfect harmony. The second A is the same.
The second chorus changes direction, featuring the fiddle on the melody. So the fiddle has a chorus-length solo. This chorus a majorly different sound to it, partially because the guitar and dobro start strumming on the offbeats, forming syncopation in the rhythm. Also, the bass starts plucking on every beat now. What are they doing?? It's syncopated, but not. The guitar and dobro have temporarily joined the bass in the duty of rhythm-keeping. The fiddle does stray a little with improvisation but not by far.
The third chorus is a guitar solo. The fiddle starts clucking in the background, and the rhythm keeps the same pattern on the bass and dobro. The dobro does wedge in a few licks here and there, just barely noticeable in the gaps of the guitar melody.
The dobro is the next solo-length chorus and man is there improvisation. Jerry Douglas just decided to have a hay-day with it, although he makes it look effortless. So part of the time it is hard to tell if he is starting a brand new section or not, but then he caps it off with a few familiar notes so you can catch up before you stop breathing again. The bass still has the same 2-beat rhythm and the guitar strums in the off-beats again. I'm pretty sure the fiddle has fallen silent for the whole chorus.
Chorus number 5 is back to the head tune - all instruments jump in their original places as the fiddle takes the melody away again. In the A section(s), the fiddle stresses the double-stringing and the dobro does a lot of bending notes with the slide. The guitar has pretty much assumed a quieter and less "filled-in" melody compared to the fiddle. In the B section(s), the bass starts on every beat but quickly turns to every other beat once more. The guitar echoes the sound the dobro previously made, including the harmony and sliding on the strings to bend long notes. The dobro just quietly piddles around with more harmony to complete the fullness to the texture of the music.
Chorus 6 is pretty similar to the last one. But the violin charges in on the chorus this time to signal that this is the last go-around. The tempo may have sped up a little bit. All instruments still have the same role with increased volume. Finally, there is a 4-measure outro where the dobro and fiddle start the melody of an A section and then strike three notes with the bass to end the song. During the outro, it was hard for me to hear the guitar, but the tune sounded less full after the first 2 measures of the outro, so I assume that is where the guitar dropped out of the melody or else strummed the ending notes with the rest. Oh, and I can't forget the vocals in this song, as we hear a "Whoopie" from Jerry before the video stops.
What a great selection and what wonderful musicians. I really enjoyed hearing this. Thanks.
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