Dark Mysteries Bright Melodies

Episode 86: King of the Bees (IMS Sidequest)
Why bees serve no king
Oct 21, 2025
https://www.shannonheatonmusic.com/episode-86-king-of-the-bees-ims-sidequest

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Episode 88-Dark Mysteries Bright Melodies
The curious cases of the pied piper and piccolo player George White 

This Irish Music Stories episode aired January 5, 2026

Speakers, in order of appearance

>> Shannon Heaton: flute player, singer, composer, teacher, and host of Irish Music Stories 
>> Brendan Mulholland: Irish flute player and teacher from County Antrim

[ Music: “G Chimes,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

Shannon: I’m Shannon Heaton, and this is Irish Music Stories. The show about traditional music, and the bigger stories behind it.

[ Music: “George White’s Favorite,” from Heaton home
Artists: Matt & Shannon Heaton ]

Like how this tune, George White’s Favorite might be well known to Irish players. But how George White himself managed to stay pretty low profile and untraceable, even after helping to run a lively supper club in New York City

This episode is also about how little instruments—like the piccolo or a little pipe—can enchant generations of Irish musicians. Or all the children of a town, especially if the piper is wearing bright clothes.

So… welcome to this colorful start of Season Ten… of Irish Music Stories

I had a nine month publishing hiatus in 2025. I finished my Perfect Maze Irish/chamber music fusion project. And at the end of the year, I released a six-episode Sidequest. It was a miniseries about music from the album, and also stories behind it.

I guess I was trying to find some magic. And some perspective.

[ Music: “Rockbye by Firelight,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

Looking at historic events and figures, old myths, and scenes and creatures from the natural world—I guess I was trying to make some parallels and find some bigger meaning. Take the long view, since the immediate scene in the States is a bit broken. Broken trust in media, in politicians, and in one another as we abandon systems of education and civics.

Well, one way to cope is through music. And through the stories in and behind songs and tunes. Glimpses into other people’s lives, other experiences; engaging tales that entertain and transport. That feels like a safe, hopeful place for me. So that’s where I’m going. Back to the land of stories. Weaving together a few thoughts about people and music that’s older than just now.

[ Music: “Moorcocks intro,” from Lovers’ Well + flute tones
Artists: Matt & Shannon Heaton ]

And about instruments that are older. Way older. Like the flute. The flute is really, really old. The first flutes were made at least 43,000 years ago, from bear thighs, and from the bones of griffon vultures and mute swans.

By the Middle Ages, the six-holed flute (similar to what Irish musicians play today) was a high ranking military instrument. Foot soldiers would play them while marching. They’d try to lure young recruits, because no one can resist the wind players. Especially not the musical rat catcher from Northwest Germany, that 13th century piper of Hamelin who wooed 130 children away with his silver, magic pipe.

[ Music: “Elizabeth Kelly’s Delight,” from Heaton studio
Artist: Shanon Heaton ]

There are lots of versions of this story, set in the late 1200s, when rats were spreading bubonic plague and when European people were playing recorders, and were just starting to play wooden transverse flutes. That’s when legend has it this dude shows up in Hamelin (or Hameln) and promises to lure the rats into the river with his sweet, sweet music.

[ Music: “Sidequest Swells & Pound the Floor & Grupai Ceol theme,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

Here’s how Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm retold the tale in 1816. Their versions of stories, which they’d collect from oral traditions, are often the best known.

It was the year 1284 when a strange and wondrous figure arrived in Hameln. He was attired in a coat of many colors and was taken to be a rat catcher, because he promised to free the town of a plague of rats and mice for a fixed sum of money. 

The citizens pledged to pay him his fee, so the visitor produced a pipe and began to play. Soon all the rats and mice came running out of the houses and gathered around the Pied Piper in a teeming mass. Once convinced that each and every one followed, he went out of the town straight into the River Weser where the vermin plunged after him and drowned. The townspeople however, now freed of the plague, regretted their promise and refused to pay the Piper, who left Hameln in a bitter mood.

On the 26th of June in that year he returned, this time dressed as a huntsman, wearing a grim countenance and a wondrous red hat. While the townsfolk were assembled in the church, he again sounded his pipe in the streets. This time, it was not rats and mice that came out, but children! A great many boys and girls older than four came running, among them the grown-up daughter of the mayor, to be led through the Ostertor gate and into the very heart of a hill where they all disappeared. Only two children returned because they could not keep up: one was blind and could not show where the others had gone, the other dumb and not able to tell the secret. A last little boy had come back to fetch his coat and so escaped the calamity. A total of 130 children were lost.

The road through which the children were led was known in the middle of the eighteenth century (probably still today) as Bungelosenstrasse (Street Without Drums), because no music nor dance be allowed there. When a bride was brought to the church with music, the musicians had to remain quiet through this lane. 
(—from Brothers Grimm, German Legends, No. 245: “The Children of Hameln”)

Even today, 735 years later, on the street where the children were last seen, people are STILL forbidden to play music or to dance. No flutes, no fiddles, no magic pipes.

The pied piper has been painted with lots of different fifes and recorders. But he was probably playing a folk oboe type thing—a shawm. But anybody acting out the tale when the Grimms laid down their version would have probably used a flute or a fife. Or the piccolo.

[ Music: “George White’s Favorite” from Tutorial
Artist: Hatao (Tomoaki Hatakeyama) ]

That’s the instrument New York musician George White chose. And in the early part of the 20th century—when large ensembles were the norm and amplification was not common—the piccolo would have been a particularly audible choice. George White played for dances and radio shows. And he became associated with this tune, George White’s Favorite, which was played recently on the piccolo by Tomoaki Hatakeyama (otherwise known as Hatao), a great musician in Osaka.

George White may have written this beloved reel “George White’s Favorite.” Or it might have been written by Sligo fiddle player Paddy Sweeney, who was the first guy to record the tune in 1934. Or maybe John McGrath wrote it in the early 20’s (that’s what his nephew Vincent said). But it’s not definitive.

And this is the deal with many tunes that have become part of the trad repertoire for at least a hundred years. The origins and even the names are often forgotten, or confused.

I’ve always known this tune as George White’s Favorite. And that’s also what Brendan Mulholland calls it.

>> Brendan: We’re gonna play a tune called George White’s Favorite.

Brendan’s a great flute player up in Antrim, and he’s collected several different flutes. Smaller fifes and instruments pitched up in F. And bigger, lower flutes, like Bb.

>> Brendan: So Shannon’s gonna be doing the hard work today on the F flute. And I’m gonna be trying to hide in the background on the Bb.
>> Shannon: uh huh….
>> Brendan: So we’ve a nice F/Bb combo going on here, which we were having great craic with yesterday. Anyway, we’re gonna play George White’s Favorite.

[ Music: “George White’s Favorite,” from Live in the Sitting Room
Artists: Brendan Mulholland & Shannon Heaton ]

George White’s Favorite is a well-known tune. But George White the guy? Kind of elusive.

[ Music: “Grupai Ceoil Memories,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

When I went digging to learn more about George White I found precious little. There’s no birthplace on record. Though he was really tight with fiddle player James Clarke and melodeon player Frank Quinn—they were both from Longford. He played with them on the weekly “Smiles and Tears of Erin,” a radio program which ran on WHOM and then moved to WLWL. George ended up marrying the pianist on the gig, Eileen Burke, who’d moved to New York from Liverpool, England.

Right before Christmas 1934, George teamed up with Jim Clarke to open Clarke and White’s Bar and Restaurant at 42 West 60th Street in Manhattan. They hired Paddy Sweeney (the guy who first recorded George White’s Favorite) to be the club’s music director.

Clarke and White’s was a few blocks north of the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan. All historic records show that the building was owned by the railway. It’s not clear when the place closed, nor are the terms of their lease very clear—there’s no record of that. And there’s no record of James Clarke’s death date. We know he died at age 50, but the 1938 date published in some places doesn’t check out.

[ Music: “Pound the Floor,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

But what we do know that their club was a swinging spot. A real hotspot for musicians who were recording Irish music for Columbia and Decca Records. I’ll bet George White’s Favorite was played a number of times there.

When restaurant closed, the land was owned and operated by the railroad company until Donald Trump purchased the rights to the property in the 1970s.

[ Music: “Free the Heel,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

It entered bankruptcy in the late 80s, and after filing for corporate bankruptcy and avoiding personal bankruptcy the guy sold the developing rights to investors from Hon Kong. I guess he kept a 30% stake. It’s now controlled by other development groups, but that guy still retains a 30% ownership stake in the project.

[ Music: “Little Bird Lullaby,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Composer/Artist: Matt Heaton ]

Excessive wealth… and excessive use or abuse of legal safeguards to protect personal assets feels greedy and unfair. Really, it’s a bit grim. And the pied piper of Hamelin story about the missing kids is also grim—not just Grimm Brothers. Though the brothers were the ones who added the rat subplot. They were great storytellers, so adding in the rats helped to establish the time of rats and the Black Death. And cunning, dirty rats are often folktale scapegoats.

But the real story was captured in the official records of the town—there was a note in the Hamelin ledger documenting the disappearance of 130 kids. It dates the loss on June 26th 1284. It talks about the kids led out of town by a piper wearing a multicolored cloth. Some think he was a recruiter whose music and colorful clothing lured teenagers who went willingly with him to work in new lands. Others say he was a cult leader who abducted the children. Some think the kids suffered a some mass hysteria and just walked after him mindlessly. Maybe they were children crusaders.

It’s pretty mysterious. And it’s pretty dark. Fortunately, the piccolo is cheerful. Even if you can’t play it on Bungelosen Street.

[ Music: “Aunt Jane’s Trip to Norway,” from Blue Dress
Composer: Shannon Heaton
Artists: Shannon Heaton & Maeve Gilchrist ]

Irish Music Stories was written and produced by me, Shannon Heaton. Thanks to Matt Heaton for the production music, Thanks to Brendan Mulholland for playing George White’s with me (and for loaning me that amazing little F flute!). Thanks to Hatao for the tunes on the piccolo. And thank you, everybody for listening!

There are plenty of other IrishMusicStories episodes. Hope you’ll give some of them a listen or a re-listen, and share them with friends and family. For more information about this podcast project, for playlists, or to kick in to help build the show, just head to IrishMusicStories.org