Thank you for posting this!! <3 <3 <3

Miss seeing you and your two daughters playing!! Last I seen you was some years ago at Grassroots when the one had a bun in the oven..

Kind sir how r your strings tuned?

Just four strings, a bow, and two feet. What an amazingly powerful performance.

Fantastic! Originally made for a bagpipe?

Just to cool you three !!!!!!

Wow..Morpeth Rant....we play it on fife and drum...

Thank You John.

I first heard it from Benny Martin, with John Hartford on an old Album I had, I always thought it was from when the russians kicked his butt. another tune with Napoleon / Russian scotts Irish connection, is a bonny bunch of roses.oh. if I were still playing the song, it would be around 40 years for me also. He makes me want to get out a fiddle . I never made the song sound this good.

Love how this theme is played by this man, ELP, Glen Campbell and Pee Wee King.

Magnificent!!!

Since I discovered you not so long ago playing Bonaparte's Retreat you are my absolute number 1 fiddler. To me there will never be anyone better than this ❤

Love the foot work! Tune makes you want to move your feet.

You should always take accounts of the origins of fiddle tunes and what they're 'really about' with several truckloads of salt, unless there is a known composer who has stated what the tune is 'about' - then just take it with one truckload of salt. Here's an excerpt from the lengthy Fiddler's Companion entry on this tune: In fact, the tune has Irish origins, though Burman-Hall could only find printed variants in sources from that island from 1872 onward. "It has been collected in a variety of functions, including an Irish lullaby and a 'Frog Dance' from the Isle of Man" (Linda Burman‑Hall. "Southern American Folk Fiddle Styles," Ethnomusicology, vol. 19, #1, Jan. 1975). Samuel Bayard (1944) concurs with assigning Irish origins for "Bonaparte's Retreat," and notes that it is an ancient Irish march tune with quite a varied traditional history. The 'ancient march' is called "The Eagle's Whistle [1]" or "The Eagle's Tune," which P.W. Joyce (1909) said was formerly the marching tune of the once powerful O'Donovan family. Still, states Bayard, the evidence of Irish collections indicates that it has long been common property of traditional fiddlers and pipers, and has undergone considerable alteration at various hands.

John is amazingly talented and a pure delight to listen to. This reminds me of the bluegrass festival my fater made us go to every year when i was a child, i hated then but i look back lovingly and miss that music.

Yes sir!! So much fun. Thank you

Is that in AEAE? Best version I've ever heard.

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You are truest inspirational. I play lefty and you provide a beautiful mirror for me to mimic. Thank you for sharing and lifting me up. ❤

Excellent

Brilliant!

Nice. Not flashy, but seems to me to be trying to be authentic to traditional playing. I mostly think I hear the Native American spirit in our music when it breaks out into a particular free and untrammelled mood. This rendition evokes a different feeling. A deliberate and sustained sense of musical awareness moving in time. Contemplative comes to mind.

Relentless rendition. Your playing is uncompromisingly evocative of the ancient origins of this music. Goes right through me and brings back memories from across the river in New Hampshire from the 40s and 50s.

Bonaparte’s retreat as it is usually played is a rousing fiddle song that never made sense to me. Now it makes far more sense and properly sounds more Irish and like a mournful dirge. I’m convinced.

WOW!!! He makes that thing sing!!!!!!! Beautiful.

i have been known to listen to this for at least 2 strait hours . . . need i say i love it?

Wow, what a great performance!

Great rendition russ barenburg transatlantic sessions is also great. Have a wonderful day everyone.

Wow, that’s a fiddle & stomping tour de force. 👏👏👏👏👏

Is the fiddle using "open" tuning, and if so, which tuning ?

Bravo!

This is so good. Listened to it many times over the years

😎

This man is an American treasure

Love it. So good John.

Speckers are an American treasure!!

Special ,so special

John’s the best, in a league of his own. Amazing.

The Speckers are so awesome,authentic American treasures!!

The Irish fighters were basically mercenaries called "THE WILD GEESE" they would join ANY army that were fighting the English.....

John Brown was no hero. He was a criminal and a traitor.

Was it really necessary to desecrate our flag?

I'm a new fan John! I'm a new self taught Metis fiddler from Vancouver Island. I've been playing for about 5 months now. I really enjoy your fiddling.

Oh yeah. The real thing.

This guy's New York hipster persona couldn't be more abrasive to my eyeballs, but alas music is for the ears, and this is fine, mighty fine!

Great tune , excellently played but I've pointed out on another video that John Specker's friend has told him all wrong re the origin. The retreat the tune refers to is not from 1815 Waterloo but 1812 Moscow...which is why it is a happy tune. Many such tunes commemorating this retreat appeared in Britain, mainly England, arouind the same period. The Waterloo explanation is also wrong for another reason. The Duke of Wellington was himself Irish and around one-third, 8,500, of all the British Isles troops were made up of principally 3 Irish regiments. .

Thats not the name of that tune

Pee Wee King song.

A masterpiece!!

I would love to hear you play the Boston burgler again, the only version i could find has very low audio quality.