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Happy Hours (Plaisance-Fox)

[Emile Vacher, Jean Peyronnin]

Emile Vacher on accordion, Gusti Malha on banjo and Jean Peyronnin on piano recorded Vacher and Peyronnin’s Plaisance-Fox in 1926 for the B-side of Vacher’s 10" 78 rpm Shellac record Odeon 165.048. The A-side of the record is Michel Péguri’s La Bourrasque.

His Hohner and Bob Smith’s Ideal Band recorded this tune using the title Happy Hours in 1930/31 for the Shellac record Beltona 1785, with “His Hohner” being mouth-organ player James (Jimmy) Hiddlestone. This track was included in 1977 on the Topic compilation of recordings of Bob Smith’s Ideal Band, Ideal Music for All the Year Round. The album notes commented:

[Jimmy Andrews] worked for a time with the dulcimer-player William McNally, who recorded several sides for Beltona, and also with Jimmy Hiddlestone, an ex-railwayman and mouth-organ player, likewise from Glasgow, under the name of The Andrews Brothers. Hiddlestone too was associated with the Bob Smith circle: he recorded some duets with the autoharp-player MacFarlane at the November 1930 session, such as The Call of the Pipes Part 1, and later some solos with the band’s accompaniment, like Happy Hours. Both Hiddlestone and MacFarlane also show up in the sketches.

Northumbrian piper Billy Pigg played Hapyp Hours in a 1950s recording that was included in 1971 on his Leader album The Border Minstrel.

The Old Hat Concert Party (Katie and John Howson et al) played Happy Hours on their eponymous 1986 cassette The Old Hat Concert Party.

Brass Monkey played Happy Hours in 2004 on their fifth album Flame of Fire. and in 2013 on their 30^th anniversary celebration CD and DVD, The Best of Live. John Kirkpatrick noted:

Martin Brinsford learned this from the playing of fellow mouth organ supremo Jimmy Huddlestone on one of the two 1977 Topic LPs which featured re-issues of the 1930s recordings of Bob Smith’s Ideal Band from Glasgow. It turns out that Jimmy’s performance was based on a composition from 1926 by one of the prominent Parisian accordionists of the day, Emile Vacher, under the title Plaisance-Fox. Somewhere between Paris and Glasgow, as well as gaining a new title, the tune also grew an additional phrase that isn’t in the original. Mon Dieu, Jimmy!

Northumbrian piper Andy May played a set of Happy Hours and the trad. Finnish Reepakan Polka on his 2009 Fellside album Happy Hours. He noted:

Two great party tunes! The first came into the piping repertoire via Billy Pigg in the 1960s, actually. We’ve tried to recapture the sense of fun in Billy’s recordings of it. The second tune is Finnish, played by Erkki Metsapelto from Vimpeli, although I learned it from Antti Järvelä during many happy hours of sessions on Baltic Crossing tours.

The Old Fashioned (Pete Bullock, Fi Fraser and Howard Mitchell) played a set of Silverton Polka and Happy Hours in 2016 on their No Masters album Strawberry Leaves. They noted:

The first tune was learnt from the playing of Flowers and Frolics whilst the second was learnt by Fi play with mouthorgan and tambourine legend, Martin Brinsford.