"British Field March"

[Dave Hicks]

An old-time fiddle tune with mandolin, guitars and electric bass.



This is a traditional British Isles tune, probably Irish in origin. It was originally a march, as the name says, but I’ve, um, twisted it a bit. My version isn’t too suitable for marching into battle, but maybe suits a defeated army limping away.

I learned this tune from Bruce Ling, a fine singer and multi-instrumentalist with Michigan’s Hawks and Owls String Band. Bruce learned it from a Library of Congress recording of fiddler Henry Reed, taped by Alan Jabbour. Reed learned it from Quincey Dillion, a Civil War fifer, who learned it from his grandfather, a fifer who heard it played by the retreating British troops after the Battle of New Orleans in 1812.