arranged by Stacy Phillips
As an accompaniment to Tim Woodbridge’s latest installment of his series about Canada’s Don Messer, here is a generalized version of the tune using its current title, Big John McNeil.
This version is taken from my 750 tune compendium, The Phillips Collection of Traditional American Fiddle Tunes – Hoedowns, Breakdowns and Reel” published by Mel Bay.
The book and its companion volumes of rags, blues, jigs, polkas, hornpipes, waltzes etc. are available from my web site: http://ww.stacyphillips.com/fiddlebooks.html
Printable Version
 

Cookie Segelstein completes her current series on klezmer violin with a look at an introspective, usually rubato style of music from East Europe, the doina.
Anthony Barnett continues his musing on the history and current state of jazz violin with  a trenchant view of the opposite (perhaps an overstatement on my part) pole to Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli and the phenomenon of “gypsy jazz”.
Carolyn Osborne completes her essay about preparing to learn upper hand positions on your fiddle.
Finally, the first of what I hope will be a series of essays, by …

by Stacy Phillips
The past few years have seen a relative bonanza in fiddle-oriented nonfiction in print. Check out the previous review article I wrote for the October 2004 edition of Fiddle Sessions. Here is a rundown of nine of my favorites that are not mainly music transcriptions or instruction.
“Fiddler of the Opry – The Howdy Forrester Story” by Gayel Pitchford (Viewpoint Press – 2007) is a biography of the most important Nashville fiddler in the 1950’s and `60’s.  He composed many now standard tunes as well as variations of pieces …