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Road to Boston/It's a Long Road To Boston
American, Reel. USA; New England, Pennsylvania.
ARTIST: From Bayard; Kuntz
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: Early 1900s;
RECORDING INFO: On the Road to Boston: de Ville, Paul (ed.) / Concertina and How To Play It, Carl Fischer, sof (1905), #155
The Road to Boston: American Irish String Band. National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest & Folk Music Festival. 1973, Century, LP (1973), trk# B.11
Argo, Warren. Silberberg, Gene (ed.) / Complete Fiddle Tunes I Either Did or Did Not., Silberberg, Fol (2005), p161
Bedford Minuteman Fifers and Drummers. Grand Musick, Old North Bridge ONB 1775, LP (1974), trk# B.04
Curley, Clyde. Songer, Susan; & Clyde Curley (eds) / Portland Collection, Vol. 2, Portland Collection, Fol (2005), p169
Devan, J. W.. Bayard, Samuel (ed.) / Hill Country Tunes: Instrumental Folk Music..., Amer. Folklore Society, fol (1944), 19 [1943/10/20]
F & W String Band. F & W String Band, F & W FW-1, LP (1969), trk# 16
Miller, Rodney & Randy. New England Chestnuts. 2, Alcazar FR 204, LP (1980), trk# A.03a
New Columbia Fiddlers. Fiddle Tunes of the Lewis and Clark Era, Voyager VRCD 358, CD (2002), trk# 7
Russell, Linda. Good Old Colony Days, Prairie Smoke PS 001, LP (1984), trk# B.03
Village Green Musicians. Village Green - Dance Music of Old Sturbridge Village, North Star NS 0038, Cas (199?), trk# B.04b
RELATED TO: Bouree d'Aigueperse; "Boston March"
OTHER NAMES: "On the Road to Boston," "Road to London."
SOURCES: Bayard Folk Index; Kuntz, A fiddler’s Companion; Whistled by J.W. Devan (Connellsville, Pa., 1943; as he formerly played it on the fife) [Bayard, 1944]; Wilbur Neal (Jefferson County, Pa., 1948), James Morris (elderly fiddler from Greene County, Pa., 1930's), Hiram Horner (fifer from Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, Pa., 1960), Samuel Wiltrout (Fayette and Westmoreland Counties, Pa., 1944), Marion Yoders (fifer and fiddler from Greene County, Pa., 1960) [Bayard, 1981]; Rodney Miller (N.H.) [Phillips]; Warren Argo [Silberberg]. American Veteran Fifer, 1927; No. 56. Bayard (Hill Country Tunes), 1944; No. 19. Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 197, pgs. 153‑154. Cazden, 1955; pg. 26. Cushing, 1805; No. 35. Hazeltine, 1820; pg. 35. Messer (Way Down East), 1939; No. 32. Miller & Perron (New England Fiddler’s Repertoire), 1983; No. 53. Ostling, pg. 21. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 1, 1994; pg. 199. Silberberg (Tunes I Learned at Tractor Tavern), 2002; pg. 130. Sweet (Fifer’s Delight), 1965/1981; pg. 79. Alcazar Dance Series FR 204, Rodney Miller ‑ "New England Chestnuts 2" (1981). North Star NS0038, "The Village Green: Dance Music of Old Sturbridge Village."
NOTES: D Major. Standard tuning. AB (Silberberg): AABB (most versions): AA'BB' (Phillips). "This old fifers' march is known by the above name in the Northeast as well as in Pennsylvania. A New England game song beginning with the title may account for this title; if so, the fact emphasizes the close connection between playparty and dance tunes to which we have already referred (see Introduction). Mr. Devan stated that there were words known to the tune in Fayette County, but he could not recall them. They may or may not have included those just quoted" (Bayard, 1944). In his 1981 collection Bayard calls the tune international, at least the first strain, and probably quite old. Close variants from the Continent appear in Bouillet, Album Auvergnat, pg. 30, as "Bourree d'Aigueperse," and in Quellien, "Chansons et Danses des Bretons," (p. 287, No. 9) {Ed.--This bourree also appears in Stevens Massif collection, collected in the Auvergne region of Central France); while the second part of an Irish tune described as a 'quadrille' corresponds to the first part of "Road to Boston" (see Joyce 1909, No. 277). A southern variant appears in Ford, p. 174, as "Exhibition March No. 2."./ One of the tunes identified by 93 yr. old Benjamin Smith of Needham, Mass., in 1853 as the most popular American army tunes of the Revolutionary War; until their musicians learned "Yankee Doodle" and "The White Cockade" from hearing the British playing them in the distance (Winstock, 1970; pg. 71). [Kuntz]
Here are the lyrics:
Road To Boston- Bayard
It's a long road to Boston, boys, (ter)
Oh when shall we get there?
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