Leather Britches

Leather Britches is a traditional reel in G major, rooted in Scottish fiddle tradition and now part of the Old Time and contest fiddle repertoire throughout North America. Its Scottish source tune appears as “Lord Macdonald’s Reel” in Niel Gow’s third collection (ca. 1792–95), the name under which it circulated in 19th-century tune collections. The American form draws particularly on the 2nd and 4th parts of the Gow-era Scottish settings. Early commercial recordings include the Leake County Revelers on Columbia (1927) and Earl Johnson and His Clodhoppers the same year; later recordings of note include Paul Warren’s on Flatt and Scruggs at Carnegie Hall! and John Hartford’s on Aereo-Plain.