I am pretty sure I learned Belle of Lexington from a video of Riley Calcagno and Vivian Leva playing it in London in 2018. You might remember Riley from formerly-local old-time band The Onlies, so this is one I could plausibly have learned in person from him, but I just don’t think I did. It’s kind of weird how traditional music transmission works these days, isn’t it? I learned this from someone I think of as a local musician, but he was 5,000 miles away at the time.

The Belle of the title is almost certainly Belle Brezing, a famous madame in late 19th- and early 20th-century Lexington, Kentucky.

The tune in this form comes from the playing of Emmett Lundy, but it is pretty clearly based on the Irish tune Kitty’s Wedding. Kitty’s Wedding is also the tune which turned into Smith’s Reel, but I don’t think I had put together that Belle of Lexington and Smith’s Reel are essentially different flavors of the same tune until I started working on this write-up. I always think it’s interesting to see divergent evolution of a tune in action, and I hope you do as well.

Kitty’s Wedding:

Smith’s Reel:

Belle of Lexington:

A bonus swing-y Belle of Lexington from Leo Shannon, also of The Onlies: https://juneappalrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/belle-of-lexington-3