Hi Ian,

Do you know whether the Sally Sloane jig is mentioned in either of the two books by John Meredith and Hugh Anderson?

Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them

Folk Songs Of Australia Book 2

There may be more information there. I can find my copy of book 1 but I have to do a little search for book 2. I had it out a few weeks ago so it can't have gone far, but I just have to find out where it is hiding.

These two books are little short of amazing. Meredith and Anderson travelled around parts of Australia, or maybe just in the state of New South Wales - I'll have to check on that - talking to the old time musicians with the aim of collecting as many songs and tunes they could find. They also interviewed the musicians, and quite often there will be information about where they learned the tune. The most interesting thing for me is that, because of the relative isolation of many of the musicians from each other, the tunes and songs evolved separately according to how they were transmitted and interpreted by the different musicians.

The link above, given by Ian, to the sound recording of Sally Sloane, is the original recording by Meredith and Anderson. Book 1, back in 1967, was responsible for initiating my love of folk music. I used to borrow it from the library.

Jack, I definitely hear similarities to The Miller of the Dee, which we used to sing at school. When I first listened to the recording I knew it reminded me of something, but I couldn't pinpoint it in my jumbled brain. (That was so, so long ago - singing that in school!)

Helen