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St. Anne's Reel

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 St. Anne's Reel. Our fiddler, Joe Dobbs, has been playing this great old tune for years, but there's a lot of confusion about its origins, because these days, it's played from St. AnneScotland and Ireland to New England and other spots all around the world. It's been claimed as a Shetland tune, an Irish reel, a contra-dance number and an American old-time standard. But The Flood is pretty much convinced that "St. Anne's Reel" comes to us from the French-Canadian tradition. It appears the tune was first made popular in the early 1930s through a recording of Québec fiddler Joseph Allard and later spread to English Canada and the Eastern U.S. Adding credence to the theory is that Saint Anne, of course, is traditionally a cultural and religious icon in Québec. Enjoy!

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This was recorded live at the Flood's Wednesday night jam session. For more free music, visit the Flood's Digital Jam Session page.