Annotation:Danny Ab's Slide (2)
X:1 T:Danny Ab's (2) T:Dan O'Keeffe's D:"Kerry Fiddles", Padraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy & Julia Clifford B:Ceol Rince na hÉireann II, no. 86 R:slide M:12/8 L:1/8 Z:Transcribed by Paul de Grae K:Ador A2 e {f}e2 d {Bc}BAB d2 B | A2 e {f}e2 d B2 G G3 | A2 e {f}e2 d {Bc}BAB d2 B | {Bc}BAB ded B2 A A3 :|| ||: e2 a a2 b a2 g {ef}e2 d | e2 a a2 b {ab}a2 g e2 f | {a}g2 z {a}g2 e dBA G2 A | {Bc}BAB ded {Bc}B2 A A3 :||
DANNY AB'S SLIDE [2]. AKA and see "Dan O'Keeffe's Slide (2)," "John Kelly's Slide (1)." Irish, Slide (12/8 time). A Dorian (Cowdery): A Mixolydian (Moylan, Tubridy). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune is recognizably based on the identifying strain of the ballad "Boyne Water." Sliabh Luachra accordion player O'Leary identified Danny Ab (Dan O'Keeffe) as "a small little man that lived alone above, up the road from (fiddler) Denis Murphy" in the Sliabh Luachra region of County Kerry. Ab, who mended clothes for a living, was supposed to have obtained his stock of tunes (including many slides) from his mother (who was perhaps from Wales) and would 'diddle' them while he worked. Fiddler Julia Murphy Clifford (Denis's sister) told how Danny Ab would visit her home when she was a child—Ab would whistle while he was about the family house in Lisheen, and Julia, blessed with a good ear, would later play them on the fiddle (Donal Hickey, 1999). Alan Ward, in his booklet "Music from Sliabh Luachra," quotes Julia Clifford:
Myself and Denis were very young, you know, mad for music. One Sunday afternoon we were sitting indoors and up through our old-fashioned yard through the fields came Danny Ab. And he came in... my father knew'm anyway. He loved tea—he was mad for tea. So he started whistling these slides y'know. So we made tea for'm anyway and the more he was whistling the slides the more we were making tea. And the two of us sat there and learned the two slides while he was drinking the tea.
