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FiddleBop’s audio recordings

Here are our latest recordings. They've been a long time brewing: our friend Baze began by recording us "semi-live" in Feb 2020, but due to Covid we didn't get the recordings finished until July 2022. We hope that you enjoy them. More recording is planned...

Or listen on SoundCloud.

Naima. Composed by John Coltrane and named after his first wife, Juanita Naima Grubbs, this beautiful ballad appeared on the 1959 album 'Giant Steps'.

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Here, There, and Everywhere was written by Paul McCartney, and is from the 1966 Beatles album 'Revolver'. McCartney, who includes it among his personal favourites of all the songs he has written, cited Brian Wilson's 'God Only Knows' as his main source of inspiration. In 2000, Mojo ranked 'Here, There, and Everywhere' 4th in the magazine's list of the greatest songs of all time.

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Give Me Your Hand.This is an Irish harp tune composed around 1603 by Ruairdi Dáll Ó Catháin. Supposedly written following a disagreement with a Lady Eglinton from Scotland, this beautiful and haunting melody was a big hit at the Scottish court of King James the sixth.


Some live recordings, all from our gig at the Hay Globe, Hay-on-Wye, on 4 Jan 2020.

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Thirteen-and-a-half Days in the Desert. Written and sung by FiddleBop's Jo Davies.

Minor Swing. By Django Reinhardt (1937), this is probably the most played tune in the gypsy swing repertoire. You can hear a version of it in the Johnny Depp movie 'Chocolat'.

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Smoochin' Away. Written and sung by Paul Stevens of FiddleBop.

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Bei Mir Bistdu Shein. Which means “To me, you're beautiful”. This song was written in 1932, in Yiddish, by Jacob Jacobs and Sholom Secunda. It appeared in a musical which closed after one season. English words were added by Sammy Cahn in 1937: the song then became a big hit for the previously-unknown Andrews Sisters.

Dinah. From 1925, this exuberant ditty was written by Harry Akst, with words by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young.

St Thomas and Drowsy Maggie. St Thomas is a Caribbean folk tune, made famous in a 1957 recording by post-bop tenor sax player Sonny Rollins. Drowsy Maggie is an Irish reel from the O'Neill's Music of Ireland collection.

Dark Eyes (Ochi chyornye) is a Russian tune from the 19th century which has become a Gypsy jazz standard. For some reason, it always reminds me of this Russian Proverb: "The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will walk carefully."

Gypsy jazz re-imagined!