> Brass Monkey > Songs > Bill Driver’s Quickstep / Maiden Lane

Bill Driver’s Quickstep / Maiden Lane

[trad. arr. Brinsford / Carthy / Evans / Kirkpatrick / Williams]

Brass Monkey played these tunes in 2004 on their fifth album, Flame of Fire. John Kirkpatrick commented in the album notes:

John Playford was a music publisher who had the brilliant idea of issuing a book of notations and tunes for Country Dances in 1651—The English Dancing Master. It was the first book in the world to feature printed music, and it was a smash hit, which he and his family kept running for years. From there come Maiden Lane (1651), New Whitehall (1701), Dick’s Maggot (1702), and The Queen’s Birthday (1703).

Bill Driver was a locally renowned black fiddler from Missouri, USA, who played breakdowns and quicksteps for the kind of square dancing where you jig all the way through. He was active from the 1920s up till the 1950s. Some of his tunes, including Bill Driver’s Quickstep, were collected by R. P. Christeson and published in The Old Time Fiddler’s Repertory, University of Missouri Press, 1973.