The consistent popularity of this tune, published in 1855 by Septimus Winner (also responsible for "Ten Little Indians" - click here to read more about
him), has made it a fiddle-player's standard to this day. There were several versions of this tune released on Edison 2-minute wax cylinder, this being one of the early ones from March of 1899. Fred Hager recorded about a
dozen cylinders for Edison between 1899 and 1901, then became the conductor of Edison's Concert Band, and played xylophone on at least one cylinder ("Blue Bell" with Albert Bentzler, which can be heard at Glenn Sage's
"Tinfoil.com"). He also co-wrote several songs from that period ("Laughing Water," "Midnight Flyer," and "I've Got My Eyes On You" to name three).
On this record he plays with the melody after establishing it respectfully enough, ratcheting the tempo up as he goes, making this two-plus minutes of fun. The brown wax cylinder from which this was sampled has some mold
problems at the beginning, but that becomes less of an issue after the first fifteen seconds or so. Noise reduction helped without interfering. (This cylinder was re-recorded for Edison in 1903 by Charles d'Almaine - a sample of that recording can be fond on "YouTube.")
