The Tarbolton

Tarbolton is a town in Ayrshire, in the west of Scotland, where the young Robert Burns joined the Freemasons and helped found the Bachelors' Club. The reel was printed in Scotland in the 1880s as "Tarbolton Lodge," in Kerr's Merry Melodies and the Athole Collection, and the Skye Collection of 1887 has it as "Hatton Burn."

Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman recorded it in New York in 1934 as the first tune of a medley with "The Longford Collector" and "The Sailor's Bonnet." Session players still put the three together in his honor. Some think he learned it from Cape Breton players in Boston.