DAN & JACOB BERNARD
| 1. Cripple Creek |
35. Katy Daly |
G
Tuning Instructions TEF Back Up
Exercise 01 TEF from Lesson 2 |
LESSON
1 Fireball
Mail TEF |
Notes: In this lesson we are going to review by going over two of the tunes you already know, Cripple Creek, and Fireball Mail, both based on the playing of bluegrass pioneer Earl Scruggs. Play along with the MIDI playback, alternating between lead and simple rhythm/back up, as indicated in the tablature, playing rhythm when the fiddle takes over. Both Scruggs recordings are from the classic Foggy Mountain Banjo album, recorded on Columbia- which apparently is back in print, and available from Amazon. The next three Cripple Creek MP3 examples are all fiddle recordings. the first is a recording made around 1928, by Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, one of the first country music bands to make records. The lead fiddler is probably Clayton McMichen, and the singer is Riley Puckett, who had already achieved prominence as the first country music singing star. The second example is solo fiddle by old-time banjo/fiddle player Wade Ward, one of the old time masters who helped define the "Round Peak" style of playing which dominates the old-time music scene today. This is a Smithsonian field recording made around 1960, and was released on the Folkways album Traditional Music from Grayson and Carroll Counties, Virginia. The third example is a recording of the late Senator Robert Byrd, who was not only one of the most powerful politicians in America, but was also an excellent old-time fiddler. It was released on a 1078 County Records album entitled entitled U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, Mountain Fiddler. I have also included an MP3 of my own arrangement of Cripple Creek, played as a banjo duet with clawhammer player Ed Britt. There were several notable banjo videos posted on YouTube, including a solo school performance by melodic style banjo pioneer Alan Munde, and one by Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass made in the mid-70s, featuring a very young Kenny Ingram on banjo. The last is a video of old-time fiddler and two finger style banjo picker Benton Flippen. Flippen is one of the last surviving first generation North Carolina mountain musicians. There are a number of Fireball Mail performances available on-line. One of my favorite pickers is a friend of mine from the Banjo Hangout, Jim Reed, who is a mine electrician from eastern Kentucky. Wry Whiskey is a band that I was in over ten years ago, which includes Brian Clancey on guitar, and Tom Speth of bass. We did a very different, ragtime blues rendition. I admit my singing leaves something to be desired, but somebody had to do it! There are a number of fine performances posted YouTube, including Flatt & Scruggs, from their 1950s Martha White TV show. Many of these are available in a series of 10 DVD's put out by the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Roy Acuff recording is the classic all others came from, and it is available from Amazon on a Columbia /Legacy CD entitled The Essential Roy Acuff (1936-1949). The Osborne Brothers 1971 recording on Decca includes some very Sonny-ish licks right out of the gate, in the opening break. It does not appear to be currently available. The Lonesome River Band performance is from a bluegrass festival in Olive Hill, Kentucky, and features the great Sammy Shelor on banjo. Banjo scholar, teacher and picker Bill Evans plays a nice bluesey variation in a solo demonstration video. Banjo wizard Bill Knopf also picks solo, playing a whole range of bluesey and melodic variations all over the neck. |
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LESSON 2 |
Notes: This week, we are going to use your song pick, Blue Ridge Cabin Home, sometimes called Blue Ridge Mountain Home, to begin working seriously on both leand and back up. The banjo break is from the classic Flatt & Scruggs recording from their 1957 Columbia LP, Foggy Mountain Jamboree, which is available for download from Amazon. Another really fine rendition is from the 1980's supergroup The Bluegrass Album Band, featuring J.D. Crowe on banjo, Tony Rice on guitar, Doyle Lawson on mandolin, Bobby Hicks on fiddle, and Todd Phillips on bass. This cut is from their first album, The Bluegrass Album, issues by Rounder in 1981, and available on Amazon. The third MP3 is a nice relaxed performance by another adhoc group with David Grisman on guitar, and John Hartford and Mike Seeger, both on banjo, fiddle, autoharp and other insturments. There isn't any banjo on this cut, but it is still really great. This is from a 1999 Acoustic Fisc CD called Retrograss, which is also available from Amazon. The first YouTube video is an upload of the early Country Gentlemen, with Eddie Adcock on the banjo. This is taken originally from their 1969 Rebel LP called Play It Like It Is, now long out of print. it is available on a compliation CD called Can't You Hear Me Calling, issued by County Records in 2003. The Osborne Brothers YouTube upload, featuring Sonny on banjo, is from their Pinecastle Live In Germany CD, issued in 1989, and available on Amazon. The great Terry Baucom guested on banjo with the contemproary bluegrass band Mountain Heart in this next video is from a July, 2010 festival performance. The last video is a 1992 performance by a now disbanded western Massachusetts bluegrass band, Bear Acker and Billings Gap, with Jerry Oland on banjo, and Bob Dick on bass. Bob now plays with his banjo picking brother Dave, in a fine group they call Blackstone Valley Bluegrass. | |
Notes: We are going to stay with Blue Ridge Cabin Home this week, incorporating a second up the neck break, using Scruggs type left hand fingering patterns, The up the neck break is at the end of the revised TEF file, with the pick up notes starting on measure 52. The PDF file provides fingering charts for the first five measures of the up the neck break. The revised TEF file also includes som new right hand rhythm patterns for use with the closed chord positions. |
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| Notes: This week we will continue working on both up the neck and back-up, using the classic Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass rendition of the old country ragtime song Salty Dog Blues. The tab is based upon the performance from the Flatt & Scruggs At Carnegie Hall album. There is also a YouTube video of Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys performing the song on their Martha White television show. The Flatt & Scruggs version is based on the 1938 recording by the Morris Brothers, a guitar and mandolin duo who Earl played with for a time before joining Bill Monroe in 1948. For interest, I have also added a link to a YouTube posting of Mississippi John hurt's rendition of the song, which preserves the original ragtime flavor. | ||
| Notes: Soldier's Joy introduces playing in C tuning, and demonstrates the similarity of C tuning left hand positions with left hand up the neck patterns in G tuning. The first Soldiers Joy MP3 is the classic clawhammer/bluegrass banjo duet recorded by Earl Scruggs and John McEuen on the groundbreaking Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. The second MP3 is a recording I made of an outdoor jam session I participated in at the Clifftop Appalachian Music Festival in July, 2008. My banjo wasn't 100% in tune, and there is a lot of background noise, but it still puts across the tune pretty well. YouTube offers up a classic 1929 recording of one of the first country string bands, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, playing Soldier's Joy, and singing the lyrics (such as they are). This recording is from a 1996 County Records CD, called Old Time Fiddle Tunes and Songs from North Georgia, which is available from Amazon. There are a lot of nice postings of Soldier's Joy in the Banjo Hangout MP3 archive. Two I especially like: a nice Scruggs style version from Virginia picker Billy Wheeler, and a clawhammer version by Rick Hollander, from Kings Park, New York. Hollander goes into a minor version of the tune, which is kind of neat. | ||
LESSON
6 |
Notes: This lesson is going to feature the forward roll, using my own arrangement of Bob Wills' great western swing standard, San Antonio Rose, AKA Rose of San Antone. The original fiddle key was D/A, but I have set the tune in G/D, where I think most bluegrassers play it. The backward roll is featured in the B part, the chorus, which modulates to the key of D. There is also an right hand exercise in the backward roll, to get you used to it. The first MP3 is the original 1939 Columbia recording of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, which was strictly an instrumental. I also located three bluegrass versions of the tune. The first is from the Seldom Scene, from the 1995 album Seldom Scene, Act Four, on Sugar Hill. The banjo player is Ben Eldridge, now the only remaining member of the original Scene. The next is from banjo legend Eddie Adcock, from his 1996 Pinecastle album, Renaissance Man. The third bluegrass version is from Larry Sparks, from his 2000 Rebel Records album Special Delivery. The banjo player is probably Tom Boyd, from southern Ohio, currently with the Dry Branch Fire Squad. There were several memorable YouTube videos in the original western swing style. The first is a 1944 film of Bob Wills, which now features his vocalist Tommy Duncan. In order to accomdate Duncans' vocal range, the band modulates from D/A to Ab/Eb once the opening fiddle and pedal steel instrumental is over. This pattern is imitated by the two later performances. Asleep at the Wheel is a western swing band that began in the 1970s, who strive to emulate the orginal Texas Playboy sound. On this video, from a Tonight Show performance in 2000, Tommy Duncan's vodal is covered by country singer Dwight Yoakum. Country legend Merle Haggard, who was a lifelong fan and admirer of Bob Wills, covers San Antonio Rose in this 2004 concert from the Cheyenne Salloon and Opera House in Orlando Florida. Haggard fiddles and sings. | |
LESSON 7 |
Notes: This lesson looks at two new right hand back up patterns, using Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms to demonstrate. The lead break it is based upon Earl Scruggs classic break on the early Flatt & Scruggs recordings made for Mercury Records in the early fifties, which many believe are the finest bluegrass recordings ever made. These are now avaliable on CD and for download as The Complete Mercury Sessions: Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys, from Amazon MP3. The first YouTube video is again Flatt & Scruggs, performing the number on a country music television show from the fifties. The next video is Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music, from a 1988 live performance. The banjo player is most likely Blake Williams. The third version is a YouTube video of the late John Hatford, from a live performance at the 1987 Philadelphia Folk Festival. The idiosyncratic Hartford was one of the few banjo players who would stand up and perform with solo bluegrass banjo. The fourth version is a recording of the great Doc Watson on guitar, with David Grisman on mandolin, from 1998, also posted on YouTube. Watson is to bluegrass guitar what Earl Scruggs is to banjo. | |
LESSON 8 |
Notes: We are going to concentrate this week on the up the neck break to Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, first introduced last week. This incorporates your first example of Reno style "single string" work, sometimes called "guitar style," using the thumb and index fingers or thumb and middle fingers to imitate the up and down motion of a flat pick. Scruggs did it once in awhile, especially with the kind of honky-tonk licks featured here. The tablature isolates the up the neck, so that you can easily loop it for practice. | |
Notes: This week we are going to learn the Beaumont Rag, one of a number of Texas rags that came originally from African-American musicians, and were taken up by country fiddlers during the 20s and 30s. Beaumont Rag is the one most often played by bluegrass musicians, due to the influence of flat-picking guitar pioneer Doc Watson, who recorded it in the mid 60s, and opened up a whole new era of bluegrass lead guitar. This banjo arrangement is basically in Scruggs style, but it uses accidental notes in ways not typical of straight bluegrass style. The B part uses inside rolls, where the middle finger moves down to pick the second string, in order to imitate the sound the fiddle gets through a bowing technique called the hokum shuffle. The back up mimics Texas "sock guitar" style back up, and introduces the use of simple passing chords. The first MP3 is Doc Watson's classic Vanguard recording, still available on a compilation CD called The Best of Doc Watson, 1964-1968. The second MP3 features five-string melodic style legend Pat Cloud, with Eric Uglum, Christian Ward, Austin Ward and David Naiditch, on a 2008 CD entitled High Desert Bluegrass Sessions. Cloud is one of the first melodic pickers to apply jazz theory to the five-string. The last MP3 is a concert recording from 1974, of the first band I ever had, with Rose Zak, Robert Gear, and Mickey Levine. We called ourselves the Beaumont String Band, and Beaumont Rag was our signature tune (this is not the arrangement tabbed here). There are several YouTube videos worth calling out. The first is an upload of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, from a 1947 Columbia recording, still available on a number of compilations, including a 2009 Baierle Records CD entitled Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys 1932-1947. The second is a recording of Doc Watson with country guitar legend Chet Atkins, a medley of Tennessee Rag and Beaumont Rag. This is available on a new Legacy/Sony Records release called Reflections. The best fiddle version is from a fiddler named Raymond Selby, from Bremerton, WA; he does a great hokum shuffle the second time through the B part. The guitar back up is an example of sock guitar style. The last video is a smooth snippet from the French melodic banjo genius Jean-Marc Andres. |
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| Notes: This week we are going to work on the tune which is known as a showpiece for the backward roll, Earl's classic instrumental Ground Speed, from the Foggy Mountain Banjo Album. The MP3 comes off of the album. There is also a nice video on YouTube of Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys playing the tune, with Paul Warren on fiddle and Josh Graves on dobro, or resophonic, guitar. I picked out three other YouTube videos with some real merit. the first is of the Nashville Acoustic All Stars with Noam Pikelny, one of the new generation of hot pickers, on banjo. This is from a club concert in Scotland in 2007. Pikelny now plays with a group called the Punch Brothers. The second features Leon Hunt, England's finest five-string picker, from an Irish television performance. The last is Boston's own Gabe Hirshfeld, playing a duet with Tony Trishka at a recent showcase at the Berklee School of Music, where Gabe is a student. In my opinion, the student surpassed the teacher. | ||
LESSON 11 |
Notes: This lesson looks at Earl Scrugg's version of the old bad man ballad, John Hardy. Sometimes performed as a vocal, it has also become a popular bluegrass instrumental, thanks to Doc Watson.. This recording is from a Columbia album Lester and Earl made with Doc, called Strictly Instrumental, which has been reissued by County. This heavily features several of Scruggs' signature D chord licks, which are not as prominent in other tunes. The simple version is just the initial Scrugg's break, repeated for practiceing pruposes. Another solid bluegrass version comes from the band that dominated the bluegrass scene in Cincinnati when I first started playing banjo, Earl Taylor, Jim McCall and the Stoney Mountain Boys. John Hardy, recorded in 1967 (the year I started playing banjo) comes from a Rural Rhythm CD entitled 20 Bluegrass Favorites. The banjo player is Tim Spradlin. I have also included a version from Don Reno and Red Smiley, from an old King album called Banjo Special. I downloaded this from vinyl, and the banjo did not come out as clear as I would have liked, but it is still interesting. The Alan Munde version is from the classic Ridgerunner Records LP Poor Richard's Almanac, which also featured a 16 year old Sam Bush. This record appears to be out of print. There are a number of classic old-time and classic folk versions of John Hardy, including recordings by Woody Guthrie, Doc Boggs, and others. One of the best is by the legendery blues singer Huddie Ledbetter, aka Leadbelly. His recording has been reissued in a number of collections, this one from a Goldenlane Records CD entitled The Best of Leadbelly. I've included two contemporary old-timey MP3s which Ii really like. Paul Brown, a great old-timey banjo picker and fiddler who is equally at home with clawhammer and old-time three finger, does a really interesting old timey three-finger version, from an album entitled Red Clay Country. In his day job, Paul is a reporter for NPR. Canadian pickers Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole have a very unusual rendition, from their CD Five Strings Attached with No Backing. All three of these musicians were at Clifftop, 2010. There are a lot of YouTube video performandes of John Hardy; I have highlighted some of the best. The Carter Family recording, made for Victor Records in 1928, probably influenced just about everyone who came after. This is available on a compilation JSP Records CD entitled The Carter Family, 1927-1934, Disk A. Roscoe Holcombe, the appalachian musician known primarily for his two-finger old time banjo picking and singing, plays John Hardy on guitar. The Bluegrass All-Stars, from around 1988, are J.D. Crowe, Tony Rice, Alison Krauss, David Grisman, and Mark Schatz. Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass do a nice version, from a May, 2007 performance at a Netherlands festival. The banjo picker is Bobby Lundy, son of the legendary picker Ted Lundy, who played banjo with Danny's father Bob, in the original Southern Grass. The viceo of the Tony Trishka Band is from a show at the Station Inn in Nashville in February, 2009, with Bela Fleck appearing as a guest. | |
| Notes: We are going to continue building on your lead and back-up skills with the Hank Williams song I Saw the Light, which has become a bluegrass jam standard. This introduces the first back-up/fill-in lick built on the closed G chord position. The open position break is based upon Earl's opening break from The Essential Earl Scruggs, the 2004 Sony two CD compilation. This cut was originally recorded in 1971, and released on a Columbia/Legacy album entitled I Saw the Light with a Little Help from My Friends. Hank Williams recorded the original version for MGM records in 1947, it has been released in a massive 10 CD set entitled The Complete Hank Williams, released by Mercury records in 1998. Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys recorded the gospel hymn for Decca Records in 1959, it can be found on a MCA Monroe compilation called The Definitive Collection. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys recorded their version while on tour in Japan in 1970; it is on their Rebel Records Live in Japan CD. There is a great You Tube video of Roy Acuff and the Smokey Mountain Boys singing I Saw the Light, from a live television broadcast in 1965. | ||
| LESSON
13 Optional Exercise |
Notes: I have put up the tab for Foggy Mountain Top in order to introduce a new vocal and a new lick for our back-up practice. This is Earl's break from the Flatt & Scruggs recording, found on their Columbia Record Songs Of The Famous Carter Family. The original Carter Family recording from around 1928 has been reissued by JSP Records, on The Carter Family 1927-1934, Disk B. The entire CD has also been posted has been posted for listening on Myspace. They yodel on this recording. Flatt & Scruggs reprise the recording on their TV show, which has been posted on Youtube. As on the record, Mother Maybelle Carter appears on the TV show, but isn't allowed to sing. Strange. Maybe she wanted to yodel. There is a nice video of Maybelle performing the number with her sister and neices, and they leave the yodel to the end. The last video is from the live tour of the Three Pickers (Ricky Scaggs, Doc Watson, and Earl Scruggs), and there ain't nobody yodeling on this one! | |
LESSON
14 Optional Exercise |
Notes: This lesson we will tackle Foggy Mountain Special, Earl Scrugg's honky tonk blues tour de force, which is a great exercise in Earl's honky-tonk style of playing. This was recorded and released as a single in 1954, and was later included in Flatt & Scruggs first LP on Columbia, Foggy Mountain Jamboree, released in 1957. There are a lot of YouTube videos of FMS; I have gleaned some of the more notable ones. Raymond Fairchild, from Maggie Valley North Carolina, brings his own unique honky-tonk style to the tune. This is from a festival at Beanblossom in September, 2010. Ron Block puts out a good solid performance in a February, 2009 concert from Ashville, North carolina, with country/bluegrass singer Sierra Hull and her band, Highway 111. The next two videos feature two of the leading proponents of jazz on the five string banjo, Bela Fleck and Pat Cloud. The Fleck video is from a May, 2007 Columbia, Maryland banjo workshop, and also features Robbie McCoury of the Del McCoury Band. The Pat Cloud video is from a 1992 Nashville, Tennessee workshop, and includes another banjo master, Bill Knopf. Cloud plays a break using some very nice chord melody technique. The last video is a nice clean 2010 busking performance by British banjo wizard Dave Hum. | |
| Notes: This week's lesson focuses on Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Scruggs' famous instrumental used as the theme of the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde. The Tabledit tab is based on the Flatt & Scruggs 1968 Columbia recording, which has been reissued on their CD 16 Biggest Hits. Some folks prefer the original F&S 1951 Mercury recording, available on The Complete Mercury Sessions: Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys, from Amazon MP3. I've included both for comparison, AND I HAVE ADDED THE BREAK ABOVE THE 12TH FRET FROM THE MERCURY RECORDING to the tablature. The first YouTube video is Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys from a television appearance from the 60s. There has been a resurgance in mainstream interest in Earl's picking, thanks to the active promotion of comedian Steve Martin, who is a very accompished banjo picker in his own right. Martin now tours with the group, the Steep Canyon Rangers. The second video is from a 2006 performance by Scruggs and Martin on the David Letterman show, along with Pete Wernick, super picker Charles Woods, and Tony Ellis. They billed themselves as Men With Banjos Who know How To Use Them. Martin and Scruggs later appeared again on Letterman with a number of other country and bluegrass stars, including Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, and Leon Russell. This performance was reprised as a music video, as Earl Scruggs & Friends, and is the third video listed here. Two other YouTube videos of note: bluegrass legend J.D. Crow and the New South, from an August, 2009 concert in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, and the great Carl Jackson, who played with Glenn Campbell back in the 70s. | ||
LESSON
16 |
Notes: We will
be spending our time this week back up the neck for Earl Scruggs' instrumental
version of Lonesome Road Blues, aka Going Down the Road Feeling Bad. This
is a real tour de force of Scruggs' up the neck variations, with
a lot of chokes, and bend and releases. I have included links to several
MP3 files, including the Flatt & Scruggs recording the tablature is
based upon. This is from the Columbia the Foggy
Mountain Banjo Album. Lonesome Road Blues has been around for a
long time. One of the earliest recordings of the tune was from 1927, made
by DaCosta
Woltz's Southern Broadcasters for Gennett Records. This has been reissued
on a Document
Records CD. The Southern Broadcasters had two banjo players, including
three-finger style pioneer Frank Jenkins. Another early three finger pioneer
was his cousin, Snuffy
Jenkins, who influenced Earl Scruggs. Snuffy recorded the tune several
times, the best being a 1971 recording on a now out of print Rounder LP
called Snuffy Jenkins and Pappy Sherrill, 33 Years of Pickin' and Pluckin'.
The Stanley
Brothers also recorded the tune, with vocal, back in the fifties. This
is available on a Copper Creek reissue called Shadows
of the Past. I also found a fine version from The Banjo Hangout
music archive, posted by member Richie
Dotson of Newport News, Virginia. There are quite a few YouTube videos
of the tune and song; I've linked to a few of the more noteworthy. There
is a fine recording of Bill
Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, from December, 1960, featuring Curtiss
McPeake on banjo. This has been reissued by MCA Nashville on a CD entitled
Bill
Monroe: Anthology. Another pre-bluegrass recording from 1933 comes
from early country singer Cliff Carlisle, complete with yodel. I have also
included two performances folk music some folk music pioneers. The first
is from Woody Guthrie,
with blues harmonica pioneer Sonny
Terry. This was recorded in 1944 by musicologist Moses Asch, for the
Library of Congress. This is avialable on a Smithsonian Folkways CD entitled
Buffalo
Skinners: The Asch Recordings Vol. 4. The second is finger style
guitar pioneer Elizabeth
Cotten, the composer of the song Freight Train. This 1958 recording
for Folkways Records is available on a Smithsonian Folkways CD entitled
Freight
Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes. Finally, for
good measure, I have thrown in a cover by The Grateful Dead, from a 1988
live concert in Hampton, Virginia. |
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LESSON
17 |
Notes: This week we are going to look at Eddie Adcock's instrumental version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, picking in the key of C out of open G tuning. The introduction provides a good exercise in making chord melodies, and overall the arrangement is a real working out playing in C out of open tuning chord positions. This recording is from a 2009 Pinecastle Records compilation CD entitled Ultimate Banjo- The Best of Instrumental Banjo, which also features Earl Scruggs, Sonny Osborne, Jim Mills, Greg Cahill, Aaron McDaris, and others. Adcock originally recorded this on a Country Gentlemen LP called Bringing Mary Home, recorded and released by Rebel Records in 1966. The orignal LP was never made into a CD, but the recording is available in a 4-box set from County Sales, called Country Gentlemen, Early Rebel Recordings. Adcock received national attention back in 2008 when he played his banjo during brain surgery! | |
| Notes: Earl Scruggs' setting for John Henry is the first tune we will work on which will be using open D tuning. One of the cuts from the classic Foggy Mountain Banjo, this tune is a great exercise in the choke and release string bend that was also in Lonesome Road Blues. Pay close attention to the notes attached to the tab; the notes are found in the drop down menu accessed from the toolbar- in TefView; this is Score/Notes. The second MP3 example features Snuffy Jenkins, a pre-bluegrass three finger picker who heavily influenced Scruggs' own picking. This is from the classic Folkways album American Banjo- Three Finger and Scruggs Style, featuring field recordings made by Mike Seeger in 1958. The second version is from the Stanley Brothers, a live recording reissued on the CD An Evening Long Ago: Live 1956. Ralph later recorded this after Carter died, in Clawhammer style. The Fiddlin' John Carson recording dates is one of the earliest country music recordings, and probably the first audio recording ever made of the song. It comes from the Document reissue Fiddlin' John Carson Vol. 1 1923 - 1924. Another classic old-timey version comes from the picking of Round Peak pioneers Fred Cockerham and Wade Ward, from the pioneering County CD Clawhammer Banjo, first recorded in the early 70s. The Watson Family recording features Doc on banjo, and is from the Smithsonian CD Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley, 1960-1962. The last MP3 recording is country harmonica pioneer DeFord Bailey, who performed on the Grand Old Opry during the late 30's and 40s, the only blalck musician in those days to do so. This is from a CD called The Legendary DeFord Bailey, recorded and released in 1998 by the Tenessee Folklore Society, who discovered Bailey living in obscurity long after his Opry tenure had ended. I found one YouTube video that was interesting, of the great Mississippi Fred McDowell, playing bottleneck blues in an open E tuning. This is an audio recording which is accompanied by a photo montage of Bailey, as a young performer, and later in life. | ||
LESSON
19 |
Notes: This week we are going to tackle our first Doug Dillard tune, and focus on his MIMT pattern, the so-called "Dillard Roll." Dooley comes from the Dillards first record, Back Porch Bluegrass, recorded for Elektra in 1963. Both of the Dillards' albums are available on a composite CD reissue Back Porch Bluegrass/ Live!!! Almost!!!, put out by Rhino, a British label. The banjo is tuned in standard G tuning, but is capoed on the 4th fret, putting the song in the key of B. The 5th string will have to be raised up to B, also. The TEF file follows the structure of the original recording, with a fiddle break substituting for the vocal. The YouTube video is from a 1999 concert in Denmark, with all the original band members, including Doug Dillard on banjo, Rodney Dillard on guitar, Dean Webb on mandolin, and Mitch Jayne on bass. The YouTube video features a long comic introduction by Jayne, who was a respected Arkansas humorist. Jayne was also the author of the song. | |
LESSON
20 |
Notes: This lesson we are going to try out another tune by Doug Dillard, his signature instrumental Doug's Tune. It is a virtual encyclopedia of Dillard's most characteristic licks. This is a close transcription of his performance from the Dillards first record, Back Porch Bluegrass, recorded for Elektra in 1963. This was been reissued as a CD by Rhino/Elektra Records in 2001, and is available for download from Amazon. The first YouTube video is a performance by the Dillards on the Andy Griffith Show, where they often appeared in character as "the Darlings." The second video is from the 1999 reunion concert in Denmark, which was the source of the Dooley video above. | |
| Notes: The lesson this week will be our introduction to the picking of bluegrass legend Don Reno. Dixie Breakdown is one of Reno's signature instrumentals, and highlights his use of closed chord positions in his lead playing. The recording is from a live radio broadcast from the late '50s, reissued on a Copper Creek CD. The CD is also available for MP3 dowload from Amazon.com. The recording of Little Roy Lewis and The Lewis Family Band is from their 1996 album Handmade Harmony. The Mark O'Connor cut is from his 1998 Rounder Records CD Retrospective, and features O'Connor on guitar, with guests Tony Rice and Dan Crary. You can view a YouTube lesson from Don Wayne Reno's Homespun Video, Bluegrass Banjo Don Reno Style. As he says on the video, his father never played anything the same way twice. The second YouTube video is a solo performance by Italian guitar impresario Beppe Gambetta, doing some awesome flatpicking. | ||
LESSON
22 |
Notes: We
are going to continue this week with our exploration of the picking style
of bluegrass legend Don
Reno, with his rendition of the fiddle tune Goodbye Liza Jane, from
the now out of print Starday/King LP, Banjo Special. Reno's performance
includes relatively simple examples of some of his signature techniques,
including his guitar style "single string" melodic runs, his use
of thumb brushes, and even the behind the bridge "Buckin' Mule"
lick. For comparison, I have included three other bluegrass banjo versions
of this tune. The first is a 1993 recording by Bill
Evans, straight ahead Scruggs style, from his Rounder album entitled
Native
and Fine. The second is from melodic wizard Scott
Vestal, from a Pinecastle album entitled Bluegrass
'95, with Aubrey
Haney on fiddle. The last is form BHO member Royce
Burt, who uploaded this fine version in 2007. Royce plays all the instruments
on this recording. There are at least three old time tunes with the title Goodbye Liza Jane. Reno's version comes from Bob Wills, the great Western Swing pioneer, with his band The Texas Playboys. The video is as Universal Studios short from 1949, and includes most of the classic Playboys members, including Tommy Duncon on vocal, Junior Bernard on guitar, and Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar. The band Asleep at the Wheel, featured in the second video, has been the leading Bob Wills interpreters over the last forty years. This performance is from a 2009 concert in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Hot Club of Cowtown is known for a more radical style of Western Swing; this video is from a May, 2009 performance of the swing trio. Wills influence was widespread in country music; a lot of bluegrass bands recorded covers of his most popuylar material, including this tune. Even some old time musicians picked up on Wills music. Old time and bluegrass mandolin master Jody Stecher has included it in his standard repertoire; this video is from a 2008 concert in Oakland, California, and features Chad Manning on fiddle, and Laurie Lewis on guitar. Even Wilson Douglas, the old time Appalachian fiddler from West Virginia known for his archaic modal fiddle tunes, plays Wills' Goodbye Liza Jane, even though he is at the other end of the traditional country music spectrum. |
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| Notes: The lesson this week features bluegrass banjo legend Sonny Osborne, and Rocky Top, the song most associated with the Osborne Brothers, the band he led for many years with his brother Bobby. This provides a good opportunity to learn and practice a song, both lead and back-up, which goes beyond the usual three chords. The MP3 file is the original recording from 1967. It has been reissued many times, and can be found reissued on a lot of compilation albums, including on which is just the Osborne Brothers, called Country Bluegrass. The YouTube video is a more recent performance, probably from the late 80s or early 90s. I have also included a link to Sonny teaching the break himself, in a clip from his Homespun instructional DVD, called The Bluegrass Banjo of Sonny Osborne. This song is so closely associated with the Osbornes that it hasn't been covered by very many bands. There was an interesting performance on YouTube from finger-style country guitar legend Chet Atkins, with Paul Yandell, who was a protege of Atkins, and another great Nashville guitar finger picker, Jerry Reed. | ||
Notes: This week we are going to learn another classic Don Reno performance, his classic arrangement for Washington and Lee Swing, a popular march written in 1910 by by Mark W. Sheafe, as the official fight song for the Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. The tune has a lot of Reno's hard driving forward rolls, but also some nice chord melody, and some very fancy single string runs in the back-up. This is another tune from the now out of print Starday/King LP, Banjo Special. The YouTube video is from a 2007 live concert of Byron Berline Band, in Guthrie Oklahoma, where Berline has his fiddle shop. Super picker John Hickman is the banjo player. |
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LESSON
25 |
Notes: We are
going back this week to study more of Sonny
Osborne's great picking; this time listening to the Osborne Brothers
cover of the bluegrass classic Pain in My Heart, recorded for CMH Records
in 1978, on an album entitled the Bluegrass Collection. The original recording
of Pain in My Heart was made in 1948, by the legendary Lonesome
Pine Fiddlers, with Larry
Richardson on banjo, and Bobby Osborne on mandolin. Richardson is the
person who taught Sonny how to play. This recording is available on a 2009
Compilation called O
Brother, the Search Continues. Flatt & Scruggs covered the
tune two years later, during the famous Mercury sessions, available on a
reissue entitled The
Complete Mercury Sessions: Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs & The Foggy
Mountain Boys. There are several YouTube performances worth noting.
The Osborne Brothers perform the song in a live concert appearance, undated.
There are two YouTube LP uploads, one from a now out of print Rebel LP by
Del McCoury
and the Dixie Pals, recorded in 1974. The banjo player may be Paul Silvius,
who was from the Boston area. Someone has also uploaded the performance
from the classic 1980 Rounder LP, The
Bluegrass Album, which was Rounder's assemblage of the "dream"
bluegrass band, including J.D.
Crowe on banjo, Tony Rice on guitar, Doyle Lawson on mandlolin, Bobby
Hicks on fiddle, and Todd Phillips on base. |
|
LESSON
26 |
Notes: This week we will tackle another recording from the Osborne Brothers, in order to continue studying Sonny Osborne's unique and original style. The song is the Carter Family classic Homestead on the Farm, also called I Wonder How the Old Folks Are at Home. The song is played in B, so you will have to tune the banjo to open G, and capo on the 4th fret. The Osborne Brothers recording is from 1978, and features Mac Wiseman on lead vocal. This is from a CMH CD called The Osborne Brothers & Mac Wiseman, The Essential Bluegrass Album. The second MP3 is the original Carter Family 1929 Victor recording, available on a JSP Compilation called The Carter Family 1927 - 1934, available from Amazon. The Flatt & Scruggs recording is from a 1961 Columbia LP entitled Flatt & Scruggs: Songs Of The Famous Carter Family, and features Mother Maybelle Carter on autoharp. They should have let her sing with Lester. There is also a video posted on YouTube of Lester and Earl doing Homestead on the Farm, from their mid-fifties television show sponsored by Martha White. Ralph Stanley also covered the song in the early seventies for Rebel Records. It is available on a four CD set entitled Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, 1971-1974. The lead singing is the late Roy Lee Centers; the band at this time also included teenages Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley. There are a number of YouTube videos of Mac Wiseman perrforming the number; one of the best is a concert recording that included Jesse McReynolds, Vassar Clemmens, and Del McCoury. Del's son Robbie is picking the banjo. | |
| LESSON
27 |
Notes: This week the subject is Ralph Stanley, and his classic song Little Maggie. Stanley is the last of the triumvirate of early bluegrass banjo pioneers that began with Earl Scruggs and Don Reno. The first MP3 version of Little Maggie is from the Stanley Brothers first recordings on 78rpm for the Rich-R-Tone label, made in 1948. Ralph is still using two fingers on this recording. These early sessions are available from Amazon on a CD entitled Earliest Recordings: The Complete Rich-R-Tone 78s. The version tabbed here is from the classic 1958 Mercury recording, available on the reissue The Complete Mercury Recordings. Stanley later recorded the song after Carter passed away, and I have included that recording also. Ricky Skaggs does a nice cover with his band Kentucky thunder, available on his album Bluegrass Rules! For contrast (and an old-timey version not influenced by the Stanleys), I have included the classic Fred Cockerham version, recorded on the County album Clawhammer Banjo, Volume One. The YouTube video features Ralph being interviewed by the late Mike Seeger (Pete's brother), with Ralph giving a quick banjo lesson as part of the interview. The Clinch Mountain Boys then do a medley of Little Maggie and Pretty Polly. The fiddle player is the late Curly Ray Cline. The second video features Mike Lilly on banjo and lead vocal, and Harley Allen on guitar and tenor, from a live performance at the Berkshire Mountain Bluegrass Festival around 1985. The last video is an upload of the original 1928 recording by the early country duet of G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter. | |
LESSON
28 |
Notes: For this lesson we are going to learn Ralph Stanley's classic instrumental Clinch Mountain Backstep. This is what old time fiddlers call a "crooked tune," because it has an extra beat, an extra half measure, in the second part of the tune. As with some of his other numbers, Ralph approximates the old modal "sawmill" banjo tuning by fretting the 2nd string at the 1st fret throughout much of the tune. This version comes from a recording made by Ralph in 1972, from a now out of print Rebel Records album entitled Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys Play Requests. It has been reissued by County Sales, however, in a 4-CD box set, Ralph Stanley, 1971-1973. The late Curley Ray Cline played the fiddle on this recording. One of the finest covers of this tune is from Alan Munde, who recorded this with his Alan Munde Gazette in an album first issued in 1992, called Festival Favorites Revisited. The CD is available from Amazon, or directly from Munde. I've have included two fine recordings from the Banjo Hangout MP3 Archive, including a fine version from Royce Burt of Plant City, Florida, and a fine clawhammer solo by Rob McCarthy of Adelaide Australia. There are a number of memorable YouTube videos of Clinch Mountain Backstep, including Tom Adams picking the tune with Blue Highway at a festival in Slovakia in 1998. David Hum is a very innovative British three finger picker and street musician whose home made videos belie a very creative picker. He has come up with some great variations. Not to be outdone, nine year old Jonny Mizzone and the rest of the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys pick the heck out of it, too. | |
| Notes: Dear
Old Dixie is the tune this week, and it is a real wortk out in up the neck
Scruggs style, with a fair amount of jumping around and fretting on the
5th string. The Flatt and Scruggs original was recorded in 1957, and was
one of the cuts on the influential Foggy
Mountain Jamboree album, which has been reissued in CD format by
Columbia. Don
Reno and Red Smiley recorded a cover in 1963 that was not initially
issued, but is now available on a Rural Rhythm CD entitled Strictly
Instrumental: Best of Rural Rhythm Classics. A lot of others have
recorded this tune, including Bela
Fleck, who put it on his first solo album, Crossing
the Tracks, recorded for Rounder in 1978. There are a whole lot
of YouTube postings as well, some notable. The first I have selected is
from Doug Dillard,
from a live set at the Newport Fold Festival in 1984. Alan
Munde playes the tune with Laurie
Lewis in a live performance from I would guess the early 90s. The great
British banjo picker Leon
Hunt does a bang up job, from a club gig in July, 2011. Even the pop/bluegrass
group Yonder Mountain
String Band has added the tune to its repertoire, featured in a live
Kansas performance in March, 2012. The banjo player is Dave Johnston. |
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| Notes: This week we are going to begin to focus on the picking style of J.D. Crowe, thought by many to be the greatest proponent of traditional bluegrass banjo after Scruggs himself. Our first example is one of the signature tunes of bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys. This can be found on a reissue called King of Bluegrass, a compilation of Martin's classic Decca recordings, put out by the Country Music Hall of Fame. This MP3 recording features the young J.D. Crowe on banjo, recorded in 1965, very early his career. In addition to learning Crowe's signature break, we will also work on the roll-based back-up Crowe used behind the mandolin. Some years later, the Osborne Brothers included the tune in their repertoire; Sonny and his brother Bobby had preceded Crowe in the Sunny Mountain Boys, and the Osbornes kept a lot of Martin's repertoire when they formed their own band.. This recording is from a live performance in 1989, found on a Pinecastle CD, Live in Germany. A tab of one of Osborne's breaks can be found on Jack Baker's Fretted Instruments School of Guitar and Banjo website. There are two good YouTube videos worth watching. The first is a live performance by Bobby Osborne and the Rocky Top X-Press, at the Joe Val Festival last February. Sonny, now unable because of ill-health to play, has been replaced by banjo picker Dana Cupp. The second video is a performance of the North Georgia bluegrass group Mountain Heart. The banjo player is Barry Abernathy, who manages a very accomplished sound despite having no fingers on his left hand! | ||
| LESSON
31 |
Notes: The focus of this week's lesson is Earl Scruggs' most complex example of the backward roll, in his and elegant instrumental based on the old popular song Home Sweet Home. This calssic recording is from the Flatt & Scruggs 1961 Columbia album, Foggy Mountain Banjo. The banjo is in C tuning, so the tune also provides an opportunity to practice some simple back-up using closed chords in that tuning. Scruggs first heard the tune played on banjo when he was when he was very young, during a visit from the pioneer North Carolina three-finger picker Mack Woolbright. Scruggs wrote of the encounter in the biographical notes at the end of Earl Scrugs and the 5-String Banjo: There were several there finger pickers I admired who lived near our Flint Hill community. There was Mack Woolbright, an blind banjo picker who recorded with Charlie Parker on the Columbia label in the 1920's. I remember him from a visit he made to my Uncle Sidney Ruppe's home; rocking in a rocking chair and picking "Home Sweet Home" in the key of C. The G7 chord he played in that number was one of the most thrilling sounds I had ever heard. At this time I was about six years old, and I wondered how a blind person could play so beautifully. The Woolbright/Parker 1927 recording of The Man Who Wrote Home Sweet Home Never Was A Married Man, featuring the Home Sweet Home instrumental as an introduction and interlude, was included by Rounder Records on a 1998 two disk compilation called The North Carolina Banjo Collection. In this recording, you can hear a clear evidence of both how much Scruggs was influenced by earlier three finger pickers, and how much he himself added to the style. Another influential three-finger style recording was made in 1927, by Frank Jenkins, when he was with Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters. His playing shows the influence that classic three finger parlor style banjo had on old time country pickers. This recording is avialable on a 1998 Document Records CD entitled Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters & Frank Jenkins' Pilot Mountaineers (1927-1929). Jenkins was a cousin to Dewitt "Snuffy" Jenkins, the old-time three finger picker who heavily influenced both Scruggs and Don Reno. Don Reno also recorded Home Sweet Home on a now out of print Starday/King album with Red Smiley called Instrumentals and Ballads, issued in 1958. The recording is available on a couple of Reno/Smiley compilations, including a 2011 Goldenlane Records CD called The Very Best Of Don Reno and Red Smiley. In contrast to Scruggs, Reno used open D tuning, and employed an old minstrel show trick, pinching the second and third strings at the peghead just beyond the tuning pegs, in order to temporarily raise the pitches. This technique would be mechanically recreated by Scruggs when he installed his first "choker" style D tuners. In 1958, Mike Seeger recorded another early North Carolina three finger picker, Oren Jenkins, playing Home Sweet Home, as part of his Folkways recording project now available from Smithsonian/Folkways as American Banjo: Three-Finger and Scruggs Style. Oren Jenkins, who was Snuffy's nephew, played the open D version similar to Reno, complete with the peghead chokes. There are a number of notable YouTube videos of Home Sweet Home. The first is a Flatt & Scruggs performance, from their 1950s television show sponsored by Martha White Mills. The second is an upload of a 1969 recording by Doug Dillard, from an album called, appropiately, The Banjo Album. It has been reissued by an European label, Rev-Ola Records. Dillard playes the open D version of the tune. Next is a home video of the legendary old time three finger picker Andy Boarman. Boarman was a barber and banjo builder from Berkeley County, West Virginia, who never professionally performed or recorded, but was well known to early bluegrass pickers. he played a style that is heavily rooted in the classic three-finger style. The fourth video is an upload of a concert tape made in 1963, featuring Jerry Garcia (of Grateful Dead fame) picking banjo, backed by his wife Sara Ruppenthal on guitar. The last is a video of Bela Fleck and Earl Scruggs, from an Austin City Limits concert which featured many of the tunes from Fleck's 1999 CD, The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales From The Acoustic Planet, Volume 2.
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|
| Notes: This week we are going to continue our study of the picking style of J.D. Crowe, with Old Home Place, the signature song of his band J.D. Crowe and The New South. The song was the first cut on the band's first album with Rounder, self-titled J.D. Crowe and The New South, released in 1975. Crowe's banjo work epitomizes the dense back up work that characterizes his picking, not unlike that of Sonny Osborne. The song was actually written by two members of the Dillards, Mitch Jayne and Dean Webb, and was first recorded on the first Dillards album, Back Porch Bluegrass, released by Elektra in 1963. I found two interesting YouTube videos, the first is the original New South line up, with JD Crowe, Tony Rice on guitar, Ricky Skaggs on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and Bobby Slone on bass. The second vide is the cxurrent line-up of the band, in a performance at a southern Georgia bluegrass festival in March, 2012. None of the original members are still with the band, all went on to distiguished careers of their own. | ||
| Notes: We are going to continue our look at the picking of J.D. Crowe with one of his classic instrumentals, Train 45. This is basically the same tune/song as Reuben and 900 Miles. Almost certainly African American ante-bellum in origin, it has been played throughout Appalachia in one or another of its forms. Crowe recorded this tune in 1968 for King Records, on an album called Bluegrass Holiday. This was shortly after he left Jimmie Martin, when he first called his band The Kentucky Mountain Boys. The members for this session included the great Red Allen on guitar, Doyle Lawson on mandolin, and Bobby Sloan on bass. Bluegrass Holiday has been reissued on CD by Rebel Records. Train 45 was already a bluegrass standard when Crowe recorded it; the Stanley Brothers had recorded it for Starday Records as a single released in 1958, and later included it on an album called, alternately, Banjo in the Hills, or The Worlds Finest Five String Banjo, released in 1963. The cut has been reissued on a number of CDs, included one by Gusto Records called Stanley Brothers: All Time Greatest Hits. Texas bluegrass picker Eddie Shelton recorded the tune as Train '76 for a now out of print Ridge Runner Records album called Expedition, issued in 1976. Shelton's breaks include a lot of his signature melodic/chromatic runs. The record features a young Vince Gill playing dobro. Ross Nickerson has posted a fine version on the Banjo Hangout, which I have linked to here. There are quite a few YouTube postings of Train 45, I have picked out four as especially interesting. The first is a video of Crow and the Kentucky Mountain Boys, with I believe Tony Rice on guitar and his brother Larry Rice on mandolin, probably taped around 1970. The second is an upload of the 1927 Victor recording of G.B. Grayson and Henry Whittier, probably the first commercial recording of the song. Grayson and Whittier were also the first to record the ballad Tom Dooley; Grayson's uncle had been the person in Tennessee who arrested the villain in 1868. Ther third video is a television performance of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, with Vic Jordan on the banjo, probably around 1968, when Jordan was with Monroe. The last is a 2008 video by banjo wizard Bill Knopf, and features some of his trademark jazzy chromatic improvisations. | ||
| Notes: This week we are going to learn one of J.D. Crowe's own banjo compositons, the instrumental Blackjack, his signature tune. The tune was originally recorded by J.D. and the Kentucky Mountain Boys in 1971 on a King Bluegrass album called Ramblin' Boy, with Doyle Lawson on guitar, Larry Rice on mandolin, and Bobby Sloan on bass. This album was reissued as a CD by Rebel Records in 2005, with the new album title Blackjack. This fast tempo performance features some great up the neck work by Crowe, and some really interesting but managable open position Scrugg's type variations that show off his mastery of the style. Note that the original recording is pitched in the key of C, but I believe that is because the band is playing in B (open G tuning on the banjo, capo at the 4th fret), but have their instruments tuned a half-step high. a common practice in the early days of bluegrass. I found a nice cover of the tune posted by a Banjo Hangout member that is worth listening to; he goes only by his BHO alias, banjoman83. There are two nice videos of Crowe picking Blackjack on YouTube. The first is a live performance of Rounder Record's Bluegrass All-Stars from around 1990, with David Grisman on mandolin, Mark O'Connor on fiddle, Tony Rice on guitar, and Stacey Phillips on dobros. The second is a more recent performance from a 2010 Madison,Wisconsin concert, with the current line-up of the New South. There are a couple of nice Banjo Hangout videos of Blackjack, including a video of a live performance by member Mark Marshall (banjerpickr) of Mount Carmel, Tennessee. The second is from picker and luthier John Boulding, from Mount Airy, North Carolina, which has some interesting melodic licks thrown in. If you want sheer speed, watch and listen to 19 year old David Barnett (mastertone250), of Whitesburg, Kentucky, pick Blackjack at breakneck speed. Maybe this is what drove J.D. to retire! | ||
Notes: We
are going to build some repertoire this week with one of Ralph Stanley's
hit tunes, Katy Daly. Ralph plays the tune in open G tuning, capoed on
the 5th fret. While Stanley takes the writer's credit on this song, it
apparently was actually written by Paul
"Moon" Mullins, who was a the Stanley Brothers fiddler from
1958 through 1960, and later a well known midwestern country music disk
jockey. Ralph recorded the song in 1971, and released it on a Rebel Records
album called Something Old, Something New, and Some of Katy's Mountain
Dew. It was later re-released in 1994 on a Rebel compilation album
called Ralph
Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Bound to Ride. The lead
vocal was done by Roy Lee Centers, perhaps the best of the lead singers
Ralph took on after his brother Carter died in 1966. Centers would be
murdered by a jealous husband in 1974, just a few years after this song
was recorded. The record personnel included two young teenagers whom Ralph
had brought into the band for their uncanny ability to do Stanley Brothers
duets- Ricky Skaggs
and Keith
Whitley. Skaggs plays the mandolin on this cut. There are two Youtube
videos worth noting- the first is a performance by the Lonesome
River Band, from a live concert from Olive Hill, Kentucky in 1992.
Sammy Shelor is
the band's leader and banjo player. The second is a live concert performance
by Joe
Mullins and the Radio Ramblers in Denton, North Carolina, in May,
2011. Joe Mullins is Paul Mullins' son. |
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| Notes: For this lesson we are going to tackle a song in 3/4 time, Lester and Earl's version of the old song Good Times Are Past and Gone, sometimes called All the Good Times Are Past and Gone. This will be the first song we have done in waltz time, which is not that common in bluegrass music. The Flatt & Scruggs recording is from their 1962 Columbia album entitled Folk Songs of Our Land. Ralph Stanley also released a version, on his 1972 Rebel LP, Live In Japan. I have included two YouTube versions. The Norman & Nancy Blake recording is terrific audio quality, but Norman has come up with some different lyrics that are interesting. The recording is from their 2004 CD Morning Glory Ramblers. The 2007 Frank Wakefield Band performance points up the tendency of a lot of bluegrassers to convert the waltz time songs to 2/4 time (Joe Val did that also). Some folks just can't bring themselves to play a waltz. | ||
LESSON
37 |
Notes: Daddy Frank is a song written and recorded for Capitol Records by country music legend Merle Haggard back in 1971. It was the number one hit single that year. Haggard said that the song was written about the Maddox Brothers and Rose, and early country usic family ensemble. Jim Mills covered it on his 2006 Sugar Hill CD, Hide Head Blues, with Dan Tyminski on guitar, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Adam Steffey on mandolin, and Barry Bales on bass. The tab is a close transcription of that recording. On the last chorus, Mills' band copies the original recording and modulates the key up one-half step, from A to Bb. I have copied that here in the tab. The original Haggard recording has been remastered and rereleased by Capitol on a number of compilations, including the 2002 CD Merle Haggard: 20 Greatest Hits. I have included links to two videos of Haggard performing the song live; the first is from 1982, right after the record was released, aned the second from a concert in 2009, with Haggard still going strong thirty-seven years after the original recording was made. There was one other interesting video on YouTube- a cover by the Finnish bluegrass band Jussi Syren and the Groundbreakers, from a live performance in Helsinki in April, 2010. The banjo picker is Tauri Oksala. |
|
| Notes: This week we are going to learn the Osborne Brothers song Georgia Piney Woods, which they first recorded for Decca Records back in March, 1970. It was first released in 1971as a single, and then on an LP entitled The Osborne Brothers. It was been reissued by MCA Records (which has owned the Decca label since 1962) on a 1979 compilation CD called Country Bluegrass. The song was written by the husband and wife country music songwriting team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who also wrote Rocky Top. The Osborne Brothers, Sonny and Bobby, first began playing together on their own in 1955, and within just a few years began experimenting with a more mainstream country influenced bluegrass sound, by 1960 adding first electric guitar, steel guitar, and then drums to their recordings and live performances. By the late 60s, they often included a piano in their recording sessions as well. The March, 1970 session which included Georgia Pine Woods went a step further, adding a string section with violins and cellos for background. The recording features only the banjo for lead; Bobby takes no mandolin break. While the banjo work is farly straightforward, without any of Sonny's avante garde banjo licks, the arrangement does feature some of the brothers signature "stop time" phrasing, which they used often, and is valuable technique to learn. I found two YouTube postings of the song worth watching; the first is from a live Osborne Brothers concert in Sweden, in 1980. They apparently carried only two other musicians for this tour, a guitar and bass. The second is a live performance by country music star Buck Owens, from a 1973 episode of the country variety show Hee Haw. I am not sure who the banjo picker is. | ||
LESSON
39 |
Notes: For this lesson we are going to learn Ralph Stanley's banjo work on the Stanley Brothers song How Mountain Girls Can Love. The song was written in 1959 by Ralph's brother Carter, at a time when the duo's fortunes were beginning to look up after a long period of stagnation for bluegrass music, that had been brought on my the bursting on the scene of Elvis Presley and rock and roll. The Stanley's had picked up a new television gig on a station in Jacksonville Florida, and had signed with a new record company, King Records, in Cincinnati, Ohio. It would be several years before Carter would begin the long decline in his health, which led to his death in 1966. The upbeat How Mountain Girls Can Love was the first cut on the brothers' first album with King Recortds, called The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, with the great George Shuffler on guitar, Curly Lambert on mandolin, and Ralph Mayo on fiddle. The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys was re-released on Gusto Records in 2009. Ralph's banjo work on this song is very emblematic of his style while playing with Carter. Among other things, it shows his use extensive use of the index finger for lead notes, which he does far more than most Scruggs style pickers, and his almost total reliance on the forward roll- rarely if ever playing a reverse roll- in his picking. This combination requires him to bring the index finger down to the fourth string for melody, notes most pickers get by using the thumb with a reverse roll. I've tabbed this out as closely as possible to Ralph's execution for demonstration purposes, but I have also added a revised tab which substitutes the reverse roll in thise situatiuns, more in keeping with Scruggs doctrine, whihc dictates that it is better to use the thumb for melody whenever possible. There are a huge number of covers of How Mountain Girls Can Love on YouTube. I've selected a few I consider most interesting. The first is a uploaded audio recording by the Kentucky Colonels, from a now out of print 1976 Rounder Record album entitled The Kentucky Colonels, 1965 - 1967. This legendary band featured the great Clarence White on guitar, Roland White on mandolin, Billy Ray Latham on banjo, LeRoy Mack on Dobro, Bobby Sloane on fiddle, and Roger Bush on bass. The second is an audio upload of the great bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman, a singer noted for his talented pick-up band. On this recording, from a 1989 CMH album entitled Grassroots To Bluegrass, he features Eddie Adcock on banjo, Josh Graves on dobro, and Kenny Baker on fiddle. Adcock shows off his mastery of Reno single string style on this cut. The third video is a live performace of The Seldom Scene, from the 1990 Winterhawk festival, with John Duffy on mandolin, Ben Eldridge on Banjo, Lou Reid on guitar, Mike Auldridge on dobro, and T.Michael Coleman on bass. The Scene, with this same line-up, later recorded the song on an album entitled Scenic Roots, released on Sugar Hill Records 1993. Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder are in the next video, from a Minnesota casino gig in 2009. Jim Mills is on banjo, about a year before he left Skaggs. They had recorded this years earlier, on an album called Ancient Tones, recorded in 1993, when Mills first joined the band. The fifth video features Raymond Fairchild and his band, playing at Raymond's Maggie Valley Opry in 2010. There are two non-bluegrass videos that I thought were kind of interesting. The first is a video of John Denver, from a live concert in Japan in 1981. This is from a DVD released in 2009 comprised of tapes from the 1981 tour, called Rocky Mountain High: Live in Japan. The second is a cover by a rock group called String Cheese Incident, from a 2011 concert in Ashville, North Carolina. The last video presents the Jameson Mountain Boys; actually the folks at the Thurday night bluegrass jam in Billerica. This tape was made a few years ago, when the jam was still being held at Brian Clancey's silk screening shop. It has since moved to the Unitarian Church in Billerica Center. Ed Cowden, who led the jam in those days, is the guitar player sitting in front of the Stop sign; he appears to be doing the singing. To his left on guitar is Brian Clancey. Brian and I played together in a band called Wry Whiskey some years ago. Keith Hillyard is the banjo player to the right of Ed who kicks it off, and takes a break again around 2:06. Edmond Boudreau is the first mandolin player to take a break, at around 0:56. Zoel Sawyer does the fiddle break at about 1:10, followed shortly after by Tom Mirisola's banjo break at 1:38. Bill Kobin is the guitarist taking a break at 3:02. I don't remember the names of any of the other participants. |
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LESSON
40 |
Notes: We are going back to open D tuning, in order to learn the fiddle tune Bonaparte's Retreat. This is a very old tune, dating back at least to the Civil War, and probably decades earlier. Ther musiciologist Samuel Bayard traced the tune's basic structure back to an old Irish tune called The Eagle's Whistle. Originally the tune had two parts, and it is still played that way by old-time fiddlers in the Applachian regions of Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Around the turn of the last century, the smooth, long-bow fiddlers in western states like Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas began to add a third part, using a melody fragment from an old nursery tune called Poor Little Country Maid. In 1893, at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the old melody, with it's Arabian flavor, had been used as a theme by a "hoochy-coochy," or belly dancer named Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, also known as "Little Egypt," who was the slightly scandalous star attraction of an exhibit called A Street in Cairo. A few years later, new lyrics would be written for the melody, published and widely sold under the title The Streets of Cairo. Thus, the third part of the tune has long been referred to by fiddlers as "the Little Egypt part." In 1950, Western Swing band leader Pee Wee King recorded the tune, with some brief lyrics that he co-wrote with his lead singer, Redd Stewart. King and Stewart are best known as the authors of The Tennessee Waltz, which they recorded and released in 1947. A modest success on the charts, Bonaparte's Retreat was covered later that same year by pop singer Kay Starr, who had some additional lyrics written in order to expand the song. The song has since been recorded by countless country and western performers, though Starr's additional lyrics don't seem to have caught on. Steel guitar legend Leon McAuliffe also released a cover in 1950. Most of these vocal performances have transposed the tune to whatever key fits the singer; I have kept the tune in the key of D, still the standard key used by fiddlers. It is this western, three-part, long-bow version of Bonaparte's in the key of D that is most often played by bluegrass musicians today. The first recording is from a practice tape made by Wry Whiskey, a band I was in about fifteen years ago, with Brian Clancey on guitar, and Tom Speth on bass. The open break is very close to the tab. Note, however, that I have added a new up the neck break to the tab which I have not played before, which I have not recorded. The second MP3 is the Pee Wee King recording released on an RCA Victor album in 1956. This album, called Swing West, was reissued on CD by Hallmark Records in 2009. The third is a live recording of Don Reno and Red Smiley made in 1957 at the New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland. The fiddle player is Mack Magaha, who later played with Porter Wagoner. This has been reissued on a 2003 Copper Creek CD entitled On Stage. The last MP3 is a jam tape I made with my friend Don Couchie, a fiddler and banjo player from Ontario, when we camped next to each other this past August at Clifftop. The tempo may seem slow, but this is the probably the original tempo for the fiddle tune, and the tempo that a lot of old-time country fiddlers still prefer to use. Don retunes his fiddle to the open D tuning (DDAD) traditionally used for this tune, which really emphasizes the "bagpipe" effect that a fiddler obtains by double noting the low strings as drones. I made the first YouTube video sitting at my computer, back in March, 2011, for a Banjo Hangout post. In this version, the A part is more reflective of the original fiddle tune, more notey than the simpler long-bow melody line inspired in part by the vocal rendition. The second YouTube video is an upload of Kay Starr's original jazzed up recording for Capitol Records. This has been reissued on a CD entitled Kay Starr: Capitol Collectors Series, put out by Capitol Records in 1991. The third video is an upload of a 1950 western swing cover recorded by steel guitar legend Leon McAuliffe. The fourth is an upload of Glen Campbell's rendition of Bonaparte's, released in 1974 on an album called Houston (I'm Coming To See You), for Capitol Records. In 1975, Willie Nelson covered the song on his Red Headed Stranger album for Columbia. Appalachian folk performer Ola Belle Reed recorded the song on dulcimer in 1978 on an album called Rising Sun Melodies, reissued by Smithsonian Folkways in 2011. One of the finest instrumental versions I have heard (note the tempo) comes from Shetland fiddler Aly Bain, from the BBC television series he produced with American bluegrass guitarist Russ Barenberg, called the TransAtlantic Sessions. This video, which also features American dobros player Jerry Douglas, is from the 1999 second season, available on DVD as Transatlantic Sessions: Series 2 from Whirlie Records. The next video is a fancy fiddle rendition by banjo legend Tony Ellis, a concert performance in Circleville Ohio, July, 2010. The western swing trio the Hot Club of Cowtown does a great job in a July, 2011 gig at the Rosendale Cafe in upstate new York. The last YouTube video is a fine clawhammer performance by an unnamed young picker who uses the screenname dirigibleflames. | |
| Notes: The lesson this week is the Ole Slew Foot, based on a live performance of Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys, from 1976. The song was written by Nashville songwriters Howard Hausey and Eddie Manney, for rockabilly artist Johnny Horton, who is best known for his renditions of The Battle of New Orleans. Horton first recorded the song in mid-1959, with a beat that is sometimes described as rock and roll, but sounds more cajum to me, reflecting Horton's roots in the KWKH Louisiana Hayride. The recording did not sell well, so Horton re-recorded it six months later with a folksier beat, with banjo and harmonica. The second recording is available on a two CD Columbia/Legacy CD compilation called Honky Tonk Man: The Essential Johnny Horton 1956-1960. Country singer Rose Maddox released a cover of the song in 1962, with a bluegrass style rendition complete with banjo, on an out of print Capitol Records LP called Rose Maddox Sings Bluegrass. It has been reissued as part of a five disc bear Family CD set, called The One Rose: The Capitol Years. The first well-known bluegrass band to record the song was Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys, for their now out of print 1965 Epic Records LP called Y'All Come. It has been included by Epic in an expanded CD called Y'all Come: The Essential Jim & Jesse, released in 1998. The banjo on this cut is done clawhammer style, but in concert, the McReynolds had their five-string picker revert back to Scruggs style. This lesson is based on video of a 1976 live Jim & Jesse concert posted on YouTube. The banjo player is Garland Shuping, who died in 2000, at the age of 49. The second video is from the Porter Wagoner television show, probably from the mid-60s. That is Buck Trent playing electric banjo at 0:20, and Mack Magaha on the fiddle at 1:10. Magaha also played for many years with Don Reno and Red Smiley. The last video is an upload of a tape made at a live concert of The Grateful Dead, recorded at the Boston Tea Party club, in 1969. | ||
Notes: The song for this week's lesson comes from a landmark Capitol Records LP called Will the Circle be Unbroken, released in 1972 by the folk/rock group The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The successful double album, later digitally remastered and released on CD, brought acoustic bluegrass and old time country music to a whole new audience, and showcased a number of classic country and bluegrass performers, including Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Merle Travis and fiddler Vassar Clemens. The guests each performed a few of their signature hits, backed by the Dirt Band members, who set aside their usual amplificatied instruments for the acoustic sessions. The Grand Ole Opry Song, written by Hylo Brown, was sung on the album by bluegrass singer and band leader Jimmy Martin. It was to be the first cut of the album. The banjo picking was done by Dirt Band charter member John McEuen. Martin performs the song in the key of F. McEuen employs standard C tuning, capoed on the fifth fret. The fifth string is capoed at the 10th fret. The tablature follows McEuen's intro and back up fairly closely, but also includes a banjo break not on the recording. Overall, it provides a good example of one strategy for playing in the key of F. The first MP3 is the cut from Will the Circle be Unbroken. The
second MP3 is Martin's original recording for Decca Records, first released
as a single in 1956. It has been reissued on several compilations, including
The Bear Family Records massive 5-CD collection of most of Martin's work,
called Jimmy
Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys. The banjo player is the legendary
J.D.
Crowe. I have included two vidoes of interest. The first is a live
performance by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with Jimmy Martin again appearing
as a guest. It appears to be from the late 80s, during a period when McEuen
was on a long hiatus from the band. Vassar Clemens and Sam Bush are also
guesting with the Dirt Band in this concert. The second video is a posting
of a 2009 backyard jam session by some Mount Airy, North Carolina bluegrass
pickers, led by mandolinist Johnny Dearmin. The banjo picker is Rick Pardue,
who takes a fine break around 2:06. The fiddle player is Jim Vipperman.
I played with Jim and his father and brother in the band contest at the
Union Grove Old Time Fiddler's Convention in 1971, in Union Grove, North
Carolina. |
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LESSON
43 |
Notes: We are going to put the capo on the forth fret this week, to learn the song I Wish You Knew, as played by Allen Shelton, as he played it with Jim and Jesse McReynolds and the Virginia Boys. Shelton is . He played with Jim and Jesse from 1960 through 1966, and returned again about ten years later. Shelton played banjo on most of the McReynolds classic bluegrass recordings, and is known among bluegrass pickers for the "bounce" he puts in his picking, which helped define the McReynolds sound. The song was released in 1963, on the group's second album for Epic Records, Bluegrass Special, now out of print. It is available on a five CD Bear Family Records compilation, called Jim & Jesse: Bluegrass and More. The song was originally written and recorded by the legendary country duo, Louvin Brothers, Ira and Charlie, and released in 1960 on a Capitol Records LP, called My Baby's Gone, which was re-released by Capitol on CD in 2007. When you listen to the Louvin's original version, you can hear how much their tight brother-style harmony influenced the singing of the McReynolds brothers. There are two videos of Jim and Jesse performing I Wish You Knew live,
posted on YouTube. The first is from the 1988 Peaceful Valley Bluegrass
Festival Shinhopple, New York, with Allen Shelton again on banjo. The
second is from a 1991 episode of The American Music Shop, a television
show which ran for three years on the Nashville Network. On banjo is Herb
Peterson. I've also included two other notable YouTube Videos. The
first features the band Natchez Express, from a 1998 concert in Lexington,
Kentucky, with Gibson Mastertone expert Curtis
McPeake on banjo. The second is from an appearance by the father and
daugher duet Molly
& Jack Tuttle on the Prairie Home Companion television show, in
October, 2012. The song is the first cut on their self-produced CD Molly
& Jack Tuttle: The Old Apple Tree. Molly is currently a student
in the Traditional Music Program at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. |
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LESSON
44 |
Notes: This week we are going to look at Doin' My Time, recorded by Flatt & Scruggs in December, 1950, one of the classic cuts from their early Mercury Sessions. Earl's work on this recording showcases a lot of his archetypal back-up licks; most are now standard among bluegrass pickers. This makes the recording an excellent exercise in three-fnger style back-up noodling. The Mercury sessions have been reussued on a CD entitled The Complete Mercury Sessions: Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys, which is available from Amazon. Doin' My Time was written by country songwriter and DJ Jimmie Skinner in 1941. Skinner recorded the "chain gang" song for release through several vanity record labels, before making his first commercial recording of the song in August, 1949, for a small Cincinnati label called Radio Artist. Possibly recognizing the rising influence of bluegrass, Skinner had his multi-intrumental brother, Esmer, play the banjo in an up-picking, two finger style. Bluegrass vocalist Mac Wiseman played guitar with the Foggy Mountain Boys on some of the early Mercury sessions, though not in the December, 1950 session, but later recorded the song himself, available from Amazon on a CMH CD entitled Grassroots To Bluegrass, with Eddie Adcock on banjo, Kenny Baker on fiddle, and Josh Graves on dobro. The Grascals video is from the Podunk Bluegrass Festival, August, 2007, with Aaron McDaris on banjo; his picking closely imitates Earl's, demonstrating Scrugg's continuing influence in bluegrass music. McDaris now plays with Rhonda Vincent. In addition to Flatt & Scruggs, Johnny Cash also had an early hit with this number, which he recorded in August, 1957, with the great Luther Perkins on guitar. It has been reissued by Charly Records on a compilation CD entitled Johnny Cash: His Sun Years: Disc 1, Down South. The last video is a performance by Cash with former bluegrasser, now retro-country star Marty Stuart, which I thought was an interesting contrast. The New Grass Revival's 1974 recording, from the out of print Flying Fish LP, Fly Through the Country, uploaded to YouTube, features some fantastic double banjo by the late Courtney Johnson and Butch Robbins. |
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| Notes: The we are going to stay with Flatt & Scruggs classicversion of Doin' My Time, featured in the previous lesson, but the tab has had the back up and fill-in details removed. The first time through the back-up, I want you to just noodle with basic open posiiton rolls, experimenting with different licks that Earl uses here and that you have learned from previous lessons. In addiiton, most of the classic up the neck back up licks that Earl uses in Doin' My Time have been converted to exercises. The idea is to practice those up-the-neck back up and fill-in licks separately, and then insert them spontaneously when playing along woth the tab. This will give you a chance to look separately at some of the more standard licks, and learn how to move them around the neck. Concentrate first on the exercises in bold. | ||
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LESSON
46 |
Notes: We are going to continue our emphasis this week on learning to play spontaneous back-up, and breaking away from the tab. The tune is the Sitting on Top of the World, an old bluegrass standard, and while the tab includes an open position break, the basic pinch style back-up measures are just placeholders, to be replaced by a selection of rolls and licks demonstrated in the four back-up exercises. These exercised use the melodies of two other old time bluegrass/country songs- I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes, and Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms. Two of the exercises use open rolls, the other two closed position patterns. The idea is to take the relevant licks in the back up measures from the exercises, and use them in the appropriate places in the back up for Sitting on Top of the World. In the follow up lesson, you will have to play both the lead and back-up for the song WITHOUT BENEFIT OF THE TAB! Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys made the first bluegrass recording of Sitting on Top of the World for Decca Records in 1957. This cut is available on a two CD set called Bill Monroe: Anthology, released by MCA Nashville in 2003. The banjo picker was the late Don Stover, who lived and performed for many years in the Boston area, playing first with the Lilly Brothers, and then with his own band, the White Oak Mountain Boys. The twin fiddles are played by two Nashville fiddle legends, Gordon Terry and Tommy Jackson. One of my favorite bluegrass recordings was made by Harry and Jeannie West, for their now out of print 1960 Prestige International album, Country Music in Bluegrass Style, featuring Bill Emerson on banjo. Sitting on Top of the World is not a traditional song, it was originally recorded for Okeh Records in 1930 by a black string band called the Mississippi Sheiks, and was written by two members of the band, Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon. The original performance was in a much slower country blues style. This recording is available on a compilation CD called Mississippi Sheiks, Vol. 1, just released by Document Records in February, 2013. The legendary Doc Watson credits the Sheiks for his elegant finger style version, recorded on his debut album called Doc Watson, released in 1964 by Vanguard Records. This is avaliavle on available on a 2003 CD released by Sugar Hill Records called Trouble In Mind: The Doc Watson Country Blues. Inspired by Watson's rendition, I worked up a banjo version in open D tuning that I recorded in 1977, during a living room practice session with my friends Brian Clancey and Tom Speth. We called our trio Wry Whiskey. There are quite a few versions of Sitting on Top of the World uploaded to YouTube. A few of the more interesting one include a 1951 video of western swing pioneer Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, in the slow, bluesy style of the Mississippi Sheiks, which demonstrates the black string band influence on Western Swing. The Seldom Scene performance was recorded live at the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival in July, 1987, with the group's original members- John Duffey on mandolin, John Starling on guitar, Mike Auldridge on dobro, Ben Eldridge on banjo, and Tom Grey on bass. Ben Eldridge is the only original member left in the band today. The Lonesome River Band, with band leader Sammy Shelor on banjo, do a fine rendition from a performance at the Back Forty Bluegrass Festival in Curryville, Missouri, in August, 2009. Lastly, I have included an upload of a wild cover by Nashville country guitarist and Hollywood actor Jerry Reed, from a 1969 RCA LP entitled Jerry Reed Explores Country Guitar, which is available as an MP3 download from Amazon. |
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LESSON
47 |
Notes: We are going to continue to work on spontaneous back-up, and playing without looking at the tab. The tune for this week's lesson is the old country song Wabash Cannonball. Given the complexity of the instrumental breaks for this tune, we will apply the same basic back-up patterns from the last lesson to this one. Wabash Cannonball was first recorded by the Carter Family for Victor Records in November, 1929, but it was not released until three years later by Montgomery Ward, under the retailers own label. A.P. Carter is generally given the writer's credits for the song. It has been reissued on a number of Carter Family compilations, including Goldenlane Records' 2007 CD entitled The Very Best of the Carter Family. In 1936, the song was covered by a relative newcomer, Roy Acuff and His Crazy Tennesseans, under the American Record Company label. It would remain one of Acuff's signature numbers throughout his life. The slide guitar player was Clell Summey. Two years later, Acuff was invited to join the Grand Old Opry. Summey was replaced by Pete Kirby, better known as Bashful Brother Oswald, who would remain with him for the rest of his career. On the advice of George Hay, the Opry MC, Acuff changed the name of his group to The Smokey Mountain Boys. This first of several Acuff recordings of Wabash Cannonball can be found on a 2007 CD from Recall Records, called Roy Acuff: His Earliest Recordings. Perhaps the first bluegrass recording of Wabash Cannonball comes from the legendary singer Mac Wiseman, who recorded the song for Dot Records in 1954. This has been released by the Ling Music Group, on a 2009 CD entitled Keep on the Sunny Side. The banjo picker is Donnie Bryant, with Dale Potter and Tommy Jackson on twin fiddles. Flatt & Scruggs recorded the song during one of their last sessions in December, 1964, which was released on a now out of print LP called Pickin', Strummin' And Singin'/The Versatile Flatt & Scruggs. Nashville harmonica great Charlie McCoy sat in for this recording. Sadly, Scruggs takes no lead on this cut. Bill Monroe also recorded the song in July, 1977 out of print MCA album called Bluegrass Memories. It has been rereleased on the Bear Family 4 CD Set entitled Bill Monroe: Bluegrass 1970-1979. The banjo player is Bill Holden. There are quite a few YouTube postings of Wabash Cannonball; I have highlighted three as worth particular note. There is a great performance by Roy Acuff from a 1965 Grand Old Opry television performance. Country singer Lecil Travis Martin, better known as "Boxcar Willie," recorded the song in 1981 for an out of print album called King of the Road, for Main Street Records. It was re-released on CD as King of the Railroad by Blaricum CD Company in 1994. He is known for the train whistle sound effect he gets with his voice. There is an upload of a fine guitar version by Nashville legend Chet Atkins, with a fine banjo break by Sonny Osborne starting at 0:55. It is from an out of print RCA Camden album from 1967, succinctly called CHET. Finally, there is a great performance on guitar by Jerry Reed, appearing on Porter Wagoner's TV Show in January, 1970, with the great Mack Magaha on fiddle. |
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LESSON
48 |
Notes: This week's lesson provides practice in playing in the key of C out of open G tuning. By using open G instead of drop C tuning, you are still able to use the largerepertoire of closed position back up patterns and licks available in G tuning. The disadvantage is that you no longer have that nice deep low C note. For many tunes, it is a worthwhile trade off. The song example this week is Never Ending Love, written by Delaney Bramlett, as recorded by Earl Scruggs on an album for Columbia Records called I Saw The Light With Some Help From My Friends. This was recorded in 1972, three years after he parted ways with Lester Flatt. Scruggs is joined on this cut by his sons and by members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This was rereleased by Columbia/Legacy on CD in 2005. The back up in the tab is not based on the recording, and is elaborated; instead, you will have to improvise by inserting back-up phrasing you have already memorized. The last time through the chorus, the song modulates to the key of D; I have left that out of the tab for now. There are four back up exercises to add to the list of licks that you should memorize and learn to use for this lesson. The first two, Exercises 13 and 14, use the basic open position rolls, but translated to the key of C. The second two exercises use closed position patterns, again in the key of C. The second MP3 is the original hit recording of the song by the duo Delaney
and Bonnie in 1971, for a now out of print Atco/Atlantic Records album
called Motel Shot. The song has been re-released on mini-CD by
Rhino/Elektra called Rhino
Hi-Five: Delaney & Bonnie. The same year, the song was covered
by country singer Dickey
Lee, on an out of print album entitled Never Ending Song of Love.
It has been re-issued on a 2009 Goldenlane Records CD called The
Very Best of Rickey Lee. Finally, the ground-breaking progressive
bluegrass group Country
Gazette recorded the song in 1974, for an out of print United Artist
album called Country Gazette Live, recorded at McCabes Guitar
Shop in Santa Monica, California. Alan
Munde is on banjo, Byron
Berline on fiddle, Roger Bush on bass, and Roland
White on guitar, with guest artist Skip Conover on the dobro. The
band reprised their performance in a video uploaded to YouTube, from a
live concert in Japan in 1985. The second video is an upload of a cover
by Loretta
Lynn and Conway
Twitty, for their now out of print 1971 Decca album Lead Me On.
This was the second of eleven albums the two stars would collaborate on. |
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LESSON
49 |
Notes: Worried Road Blues was the first song I worked out for myself on the banjo, over forty years ago, so I thought it appropriate to use in your first lesson in making up you own banjo breaks. The tablature starts with a simple rendition of the vocal melody on the banjo, showing you where you will find the melody notes in the open position on the neck. Go back and look at the roll patterns that you used in other breaks by Scruggs, Crowe, Reno, Stanley, and others, to get ideas on how to work up the break here. You will also practice improvising back-up against a fiddle break, both open roll based and closed chord back-up, as you have in the last four lessons. For now you should still use the forms laid out in Back-Up Exercises 9 through 12. The fiddle break is a modified version of Paul Warren's break that he played on the Flatt & Scruggs recording, and note that it deviates somewhat from the melody. The tablature does include a simple up the neck, and this will also give you some additional clues for working up the open position break. It is important to note that there are two common melodic structures to Worried Man Blues. In original 1930 Carter Family recording, the first line is only repeated once, so that the entire song is only 12 bars, or 14 beats in length, close to, though not exactly, a traditional blues structure. A number of other performers in the list of examples still followed this original structure, including Woody Guthrie, Wade Mainer, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and George Jones. When the folk boom began in the late 40s, performers like Pete Seeger repeated the first line a second time (three times in all), stretching the tune to at least 16 bars. (Seeger actually adds an extra couple of beates to the last line, making it a 17 bar performance.) This 16 bar version is the one more commonly heard today, and thus the one I used here. A number of the examples on the list using this new format, include the Kingston Trio, the Stanley Brothers, Jim and Jesse, Sierra Hull, and the Hillbilly Gypsies. As noted, the first recording of Worried Man Blues was made by the Carter Family in 1930, for Victor Records. A.P. Carter had learned the tune directly from a black guitarist names Lesley Riddle, who taught the Carter many of their songs. Worried Man Blues was the Carter Family's biggest hit that year. It has been reissued on a number of Carter Family compilations, includeing the 2007 Goldenlane Records CD called The Very Best Of The Carter Family. Woody Guthrie, the Okie balladeer who wrote This Land Is Your Land recorded Worried Man Blues for Folkways records in 1944, with Cisco Houston, another folk performer with whom he made many of his early records. It became one of Guthrie's signature songs. It was reissued in 1997 by Smithsonian Folkways in a collection called Muleskinner Blues: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 2. More than a decade later, in 1959, with the folk music revival well underway, Worried Man Blues was recorded by the Kingston Trio for Capitol Records, on a now out or print LP called Here We Go Again, which is not on CD, but is available for MP3 download from Amazon. The Trio reportedly learned this version from Pete Seeger, and it is the earliest recording of the 16 bar version I could find. Flatt and Scruggs recorded the song a few years later in February, 1961, with Maybelle Carter, one of the original members of the Carter Family, guesting on autoharp. This was released on a Columbia LP called Songs Of The Famous Carter Family, and it follows the original 12 bar structure. Old Time two finger picker Wade Mainer also recorded Worried Man Blues. Mainer was born in 1907. He first started recording with his brother, J.E. Mainer, for Bluebird in 1934, but soon struck out on his own. The Mainer Moutaineer many recordings for Bluebird heavily influenced later bluegrass bands, and contributed much of the early bluegrass reperoire. In 1953, as country and western music pushed more traditional groups off the charts, Mainer abandoned music and moved to Flint, Michigan, to work in a GM assembly plant. He began performing again with his wife in 1971; Worried Man Blues was among the songs on hit first this album for Old Hometead Records, a now out of proint LP called Wade Mainer And The Mainer’s Mountaineers. It was his first recording in twenty years. Mainer died in November, 2011, at the age of 104, still peforming until shortly before his death. Jim & Jesse recorded Worried Man Blues in 1984, probably with Mike Scott on banjo. First issued on a Double J LP called Jim & Jesse With Emmylou Harris, the album was reissued by Pinecastle as a CD in 1998 entitled Songs From The Homeplace. The last MP3 is a performance by George Jones, who I consider to be the greatest country singer who ever lived. This was Jones' contribution to a Dualtone Music Carter Family tribute CD called The Unbroken Circle: The Musical Heritage of the Carter Family, released in 2004. It was the first cut on the CD. There are quite a number of versions of Worried Man Blues on YouTube.
I have selected five of particular note. The first is a live performance
by the Stanley
Brothers appearing on Pete Seeger's folk music television show Rainbow
Quest, in 1965. The second is a performance by June
Carter and Johnny
Cash, in the last Rainbow Quest episoded, taped in 1966. June Carter
was Cash's wife of course, and the daughter of Sarah and A.P. Carter.
It is interesting that She sings the 16 bar version of the song, and not
the original Carter Family 12 bar version. Four years later, Cash had
Pete
Seeger as a guest on his television show, where Pete performed Worried
Man Blues, accompanying himslef on banjo using a two finger, up-picking
style, similar to Mainer's. Worried Man Blues is still fashionable with
younger bluegrass musicians. Sierra
Hull and Highway 111 performed the song in a live concert in Asheville,
North Carolina in February, 2009, with Corey Walker on banjo. The Hillbilly
Gypsies played the song in a concert in 2010, at the North Bend State
Park Bluegrass Festival, in Cairo, West Virginia. The banjo player is
Dave Asti. |
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LESSON
50 |
Notes: This
week we are going to get away from traditional three chord tunes, to play
Jesse McReynolds' signature mandolin instrumental, Stoney Creek, as played
by Allen
Shelton, who was the banjo player for Jim
& Jesse and the Virginia Boys during their most creative period
in the sixties. The tune is in the key of A, so the banjo will be tuned
to standard G, and capoed on the 2nd fret. However, the tune modulates to
the key of F in the second part; on banjo, this will be the key of Eb! This
setting is from Jim & Jesse's 1962 album for Epic Records, called Bluegrass
Special, now out of print. This session featured Jesse McReynolds on
mandolin, Allen Shelton on banjo, Jim Reynolds and Alfred McHan on guitar,
Jimmy Buchanan onfiddle, and Roy Husky on bass. Tony Rice recorded a phenominal
guitar version of Stoney Point on his 1977 Rounder LP entitled Tony
Rice. Rice is accompanied by J.D.
Crowe on banjo, David
Grisman on mandolin, Richard
Greene and Darol Anger
on fiddles, Jerry Douglas
on dobro, and Todd Phillips on bass. There is an excellent MP3in the Banjo
Hangout archive by a member known only by his handle, mikeinaugusta,
uploaded ion 2006. This is a fine, sparkling performance. |
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| Notes: This week we are going to take our first look at the playing of Alan Munde, with the Country Gazette's cover of the Delaney and Bonnie hit Never Ending Love. The much simpler Earl Scruggs version was the subject of Lesson 48. Munde is a real banjo technician, a pioneer in the merging of traditional Scruggs style with more modern melodic phrasing, something Munde does seamlessly. Never Ending Love is a fine example of his technique and taste. Note that throughout the performance, Munde never resorts to any closed position, vamp style back up. Instead, he is playing the rippling, noodling style of back-up that has become standard practice among many progressive bluegrass bands today. When rolling through closed chord positions up the neck, Munde often frets the 5th string. Note the bug in the software which forces me to enter the wrong fret number in order to obtain the right pitch. The correct fret is notes in the tab. I have also provided alternate measures at the end of the tab, should this technique prove too difficult. | ||
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LESSON
52 |
Notes: As requested,
the tune for this week will be She's Gone, Gone, Gone, as recorded by
J.D. Crowe and the New South on their 2002 Rounder Records entitled
My
Home Ain't In the Hall of Fame. This was Crowe's attempt at a crossover
album, and included drums, steel guitar, and electric bass on all tracks.
She's Gone, Gone, Gone is one of the cuts that sticks closely to the bluegrass
formula, though there is a break by the steel player (which I have replaced
in the tab with a repeat of the banjo break). The album also features the
late Keith
Whitley on guitar and lead vocal, Jimmy
Gaudreau on mandolin, and Doug
Jernigan on steel. The tune provides a good but not too difficult exercise
in both open position roll based back-up, and closed position vamping. She's Gone, Gone, Gone was written by the Harlan Howard, once of Nashville's most prolific and successful songwiters. It was first recorded by country legend Lefty Frizzell, and released as a single in March, 1965, with the great Pete Drake on pedal steel guitar. and later re-released on a now out of print Columbnia album in May, 1966, entitled Lefty Frizzell's Greatest Hits. It has been re-issued on a number of compilations, including a Columbia Nashville Legacy MP3 collection called The Essential Lefty Frizzell, released June, 2013. Surprisingly, I found almost no other bluegrass covers of She's Gone, Gone, Gone by major artists. I was able to find on-line a unreleased recording of the underappreciated banjo master Walter Hensley and The Dukes of Bluegrass, from the early 70s. Hensley played with Earl Taylor in the Cincinnati/Lexington in the late 50s and 60s, and likely influenced Crowe. Banjo wizard Carl Jackson, who came to prominence backing up Glen Campbell on his 60s television show, released a single of the song in 1984. This was finally re-issued on Jackson's 2007 Synergie CD, entitled Nashville Country, and features a little bit of Jackson's signature melodic style. Even with the banjo, this is really more country than bluegrass. Bluegrass stalwart Cliff Waldron included a straight ahead bluegrass rendition on his 2003 Rebel Records album, entitled A Little Ways Down the Road, which is still available from County Records. Billy Wheeler is picking the banjo. I have included a few well-done covers by some classic country performers. Walon Jennings recorded the song for RCA Victor in June, 1966, for his RCA Victor album Waylon Sings Ol' Harlan. Nashville session legend Charlie McCoy is on harmonica. It is still available for MP3 download. Fellow "outlaw" country star Willie Nelson recorded the song for his 1977 Lone Star tribute album, To Lefty from Willie, released two years after Frizzell's tragic death from complications due to alcoholism. It was reissued on CD by Sony Records in 2003. There are quite a few covers of She's Gone, Gone, Gone uploaded to YouTube, including Lefty Frizzell performing the song on an episode of the Porter Wagoner show from March, 1965, just a few days before his single was released. There is also a live performance by J.D. Crowe and the New South at the Roanoke FiddleFest in. July 2003. There were quite a few versions by regional bluegrass bands uploaded; I've picked out several that were notable. The Reliance Bluegrass Band performed She's Gone, Gone, Gone at the Cousin Jake Memorial Bluegrass Festival in Etowah, Tennessee, in March, 2011. Johnny Siler is the banjo player. A Swiss bluegrass band called Sharecroppers does a fine cover, despite the hoaky costumes and staging, with one of the few arrangements that does not mimic the Crowe appoach. This is from an August, 2011 video; the banjo picker is Erich Berger. Magnolia Drive is a bluegrass band from Madison, Mississippi, performing here at the 2013 Mississippi State Fair in Jackson, in October, 2013. Don Robinson is playing the banjo. Perhaps the finest YouTube performance is the last one listed here. Roland White is one of the giants of bluegrass mandolin; here he is performing at McCabes in Nashville in May, 2013, accompanied by two other bluegrass greats, Herb Pederson on banjo, and Blaine Sprouse on fiddle. |
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LESSON
53 |
Notes: For this week's lesson we will be learning Will You Be Lonesome, Too, as played by J.D. Crowe and the New South, from their Rounder Record album My Home Ain't in the Hall of Fame, released in 1978, the same album that included Gone, Gone Gone, the song from lesson 52. This is a real back up tour de force; Crowe jumps back and forth between rolling and closed position vamping, using both techniques liberally both up and down the neck. I have added two back-up exercises to help you practice the most useful licks separately; note that the capo is on 2- rather than 4- in the exercises. Crowe probably picked up the song from Flatt and Scruggs, who recorded the song in December, 1964, for a now out of print Columbia Records album entitled The Versatile Flatt & Scruggs. Columbia used th cut again on another Flatt & Scruggs LP, called A Boy Named Sue, released in 1973, five years after the duo parted company. This album is available for MP3 download from Amazon. Earl splits his breaks with Nashville harmonica sideman Charlie McCoy. The dobro player is the amazing Foggy Mountain Boy Josh Graves. Will You Be Lonesome Too was originally written by Alton Delmore, and was recorded by the Delmore Brothers, Alton and Raybon, for Decca Records in September, 1940. It is available for MP3 download from Amazon, as part of a 2 CD set called Delmore Brothers: Hillbilly Boogie Best, released by Goldenlane Records in 2009. Interestingly, both the Flatt & Scruggs and New South versions of the song depart radically from the harmonic structure and tempo of the original, more light-hearted Delmore Brothers performance. The Front Porch String Band recorded the song in 1991, for their Rebel records LP Lines and Traces, and they too, followed the more bluegrassy Flatt & Scruggs setting. Claire Lynch is the lead vocalist, and Herb Trotman is picking the banjo. I found one YouTube video that I thought was of particular interest, a fine version by the Lonesome River Band, uploaded in May, 2009, though I suspect the performance is much older than that. Sammy Shelor is the groups longtime leader and banjo picker. | |
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LESSON
54 |
Notes: "Here's
Earl Scruggs now with
the old five string, where he does a little bit of tunin' and a whole
lot of pickin'. It goes like this..." That's how Lester Flatt introduced
his partner, Earl Scruggs, on the famous Columbia Records LP, Flatt
& Scruggs at Carnegie Hall, recorded in December, 1962, just
before Earl ripped into a crowd pleasing rendition of his instrumental
Flint Hill Special. It is available from Amazon in both Audio
CD and MP3
Download format. Named after the western North Carolina community
where Scruggs was born, the tune was originally recorded by the Foggy
Mountain Boys ten years earlier, in November, 1952, and released as a
single a month later, with Dim Lights, Thick Smoke on the flip side. The
great Benny Martin is on th fiddle. It was released again in 1957 on their
first LP, Foggy
Mountain Jamboree, on Columbia Records, now out of print, but
still available for MP3 download from Amazon.com. It is thought by many
to be the first bluegrass long-playing album ever produced. It is this
earlier version that I have used as the basis for this week's lesson,
except for the ending, which is based on the Carnegie Hall performance,
where it gets such thunderous applause, Earl ends it twice. The 1962 ending,
though it has a few extra notes, is easier to master. Both Flatt and Scruggs recordings are included here. I have also included a nice version recorded by Jimmy Cox, with Jerry Monday on fiddle, from a live radio performance on the Country Music Express program over station WEZJ, Williamsburg, Kentucky, from 1969. This comes from the collection of the Digital Library of Applachia, an on-line archive drawing from the collections of twenty-nine Piedmont colleges and universities. This is an important resource for traditional old-time music. By the time of this performance, Kentucky-born Cox had already settled in Topsham, Maine, where he still builds banjos and manufactures banjo parts that are used by most of the major luthiers today. Bill Emerson has also recorded Flint Hill Special, for his 1994 solo album for Pinecastle records, called Banjo Man. I have highlighted four YouTube videos that I thought were especially notable. The first is a live performance of J.D. Crowe and the New South on David Holt's CNN television show Fire on the Mountain, from around 1985. The mandolin player is Wendy Miller, who now plays with banjoist Mike Lilly in a band called Country Grass. The second video features Bill Emerson, performing at a club in Massaponax, Virginia, according to the posted description in 1987, but I suspect it was ten years later, when Emerson teamed up with Mark Newton as Emerson and Newton. The Mandonlin player is Larry Stephenson, and the fiddler is Rickie Simpkins. The sequins are shinging bright in the next video, when Buck Trent, the father of the electric banjo, was a guest on the Marty Stuart Show, on the RFD channel in March, 2009. For years, Trent played his electric banjo behind Porter Wagoner, the stalwart country singer who also gave Dolly Parton her start in country music. The last video is a fine, clean job of banjo picking by Jonny Mizzone, the youngest of the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, from a July, 2011 appearance on the Letterman Show,when he was eight years old. The brothers would include Flint Hill Special a few months later on their first CD, America's Music. It's enough to make a grown man cry. |
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LESSON
55 |
Notes: Shoulder
up your gun and call up your dog, 'cuz this week we're gonna learn Ground
Hog. Ground Hog. Sometimes it's spelled as two words, sometimes one, but
I've used the two word spelling throughout for consistency. When Jim
Mills included it on his 1996 Sugar Hill debut solo album, Bound
to Ride, it immediately replaced the Dillards' 1963 recording as
the definitive bluegrass version of this old Appalachian folksong. His
instrumental break is an simple masterpiece of fluid Scruggs style picking,
and the effective use of right hand dynamics to highlight the melody.
Throughout the recording, Mills employs a roll-based, mostly open position
back-up, more suitable than vamping for the modal flavor of the song as
he preforms it. Mills was joined on this record by Stuart
Duncan on fiddle, Jerry
Douglas on dobro, Tim
Stafford on guitar and lead vocal, and Adam Steffey on bass. Mills
includes a quick demonstration of his picking of Ground Hog on a DVD lesson
sampler uploaded to YouTube; the tune starts ar 00:58. The album Bound
to Ride is available from Amazon in both Compact
Disk and MP3
format. Ground Hog is a very old folk song widely throughout both the Appalachian and Ozark mountains. One of the earliest recordings I have found is a fanciful, wandering melodic reverie from North Carolina fiddler Marion Reese, recorded in his home by folklorist John Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1937. Reese is playing a fife, a small wooded flute, similar to the Irish pennywhistle, that was commonly played in the Appalachians. The fife had been the principal marching instrument used by military units until the late 19th Century, and many of the fiddlers either had performed military service in either the Mexican or Civil Wars, and would have been accomplished on the instrument, or had learned tunes from veterans who were. Reese's recording was included on an out of print New World records LP called That's My Rabbit, My Dog Caught It-Traditional Southern Instrumental Styles, released in 1978. It is available for free download from an on-line blog called the Allen Archive of Early Country Music. The next MP3 is a rousing performance by Cynthia May "Cousin Emmy" Carver, one of the first women to make a solo career in country music. Her hard driving banjo style was typical of the popular country performers of her day. This is a transcription of a live performance, probably from around 1940, from her radio show on WHAS, in Louisville, Kentucky. It was included as additional material to fill-out a 2012 Master Classics Records re-release of her 1956 Brunswick EP, Kentucky Mountain Ballads. It is available from Amazon in both Compact Disk and MP3 format. The next MP3 features Mike Seeger, brother to the legendary folksinger Pete Seeger, who was a well-respected old-time musician in his own right. In 1956, Seeger recorded a number of three finger banjo pickers who preceded or were contemporaries of Scruggs, including Snuffy Jenkins, Oren Jenkins, J.C. Sutphin, and Scruggs older brother, Junie. These recordings were released in 1957 on a Folkways LP entitled American Banjo-Scruggs Style. It is still available from Smithsonian Folkways, but more accurately renamed American Banjo-Three Finger and Scruggs Style. Seeger included one cut of his own performances on the LP, this early three-finger style recording of Ground Hog, with vocal by Bob Baker; Seeger was playing with Baker at the time in a Baltimore area bluegrass band called the Pike County Boys. A few years later in 1960, musicologist Ralph Rinzler would visit Deep Gap, North Carolina, to record a little known blind guitar player, Arthel "Doc" Watson and his family. Folkways Records would release these early watson recordings in 1963, on an album entitled The Watson Family. The first cut on the album was the song Ground Hog, with Doc playing the autoharp, his son Merle picking bluegrass style banjo, and his father-in-law Gaither Carlton on fiddle. Doc would go on to become the father of bluegrass guitar flat-picking. The Folkways album was reissued with additional material in 1990 by Smithsonian Folkways, renamed The Doc Watson Family. A year after that first Watson family recording session, Grand Ol' Opry (and later Hee Haw) regular Grandpa Jones would record Ground Hog for an out of print Monument Records LP, entitled Grandpa Jones Makes The Rafters Ring. If his picking style sounds strikingly close to Cousin Emmy's, it may be because Emmy was the person who taught him how to play. In 1967, County Records released an album of tunes by three of the great practioners of the Round Peak, North Carolina style of old-time music, Oscar Jenkins, Fred Cockerham, and Tommy Jarrell. Featuring just fiddle and banjo, the Round Peak style has come to define the archetypal old-time sound for later revivalists, and the elegantly precise clawhammer style ably played here is in marked contrast to the closely related but far more rambunctous "knock-down" style of frailing represented by Cousin Emmy and Grandpa Jones. While all three of the Round Peak musicians on this album were equally at home on both fiddle and banjo, the banjo work here is done by Fred Cockerham, with fiddling by Jarrell and Jenkins. Their album Stay All Night, and Don't Go Home is still availble from County Sales in CD format. I found two very fine recordings of Ground Hog in the music archives of the Banjo Hangout. The first is by my close friend Jim Reed, from Sidney, Kentucky, from December, 2010. Jim's bluegrass style arrangement includes a very elegant up the neck break. The second is a clawhammer version by Tom Meisenheimer, of Washington, Missouri, uploaded in May, 2011. I have picked out two YouTube uploads of particular interst. The first
is the lesson by Jim Mills, mentioned above. The second is the opening
scene from a PBS documentary about the great North Carolina folklorist
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, entitled Ballad
of a Mountain Man: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford. The clip
was filmed around 1960, when Lunsford was making an extended visit with
many of his musical discoveries. It features singer and three-finger style
banjo picker Obray Ramsey, from Madison County, North Carolina, who picks
and sings Ground Hog, and also shoots one dead with his scoped 22 rifle.
I knew you'd like that!! |
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LESSON
56 |
Notes: By request, this week we will be working on the Jimmy Martin standard Hit Parade of Love. It was one of four sides Martin recorded in his first session as a solo performer, in May, 1956, for Decca Records. The banjo picker was Sam "Porky" Hutchins, with Earl Taylor on mandolin, and Howard Watts on bass. The banjo picking is very simple; the back up for the vocal and mandolin is basically just a repeat of the banjo lead break, with a few minor variations. Note that during the instrumental breaks, the IV chord (C) is held for just one measure, while in the vocal verses, it is held for two measures. Hit Parade of Love was released on 78 in December of that year, and was an immediate hit for Martin. Shortly thereafter, Hutchins and Earl Taylor would return to Hutchins home town of Baltimore, where they would form the Stoney Mountain Boys with Walter Hensly and Vernon "Boatwhistle" McIntyre. Hutchins would switch to guitar behind banjo wizard Hensley, his brief career as a bluegrass banjo picker essentially over. In July, 1962, Decca would include Hit Parade of Love on a now out of print LP of Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys called Country Music Time. It has been rereleased on a 2004 Thrill Jockey Records Jimmy Martin compilation CD called Don't Cry to Me, available for MP3 download from Amazon. Since the song melody and chord structure is simple, and the banjo work elementary, this would be a good song to try to use as an exercise in working up your own up the neck break. Look at other banjo lessons with both open position and up the neck breaks, to see how open positions licks are translated higher up. Often, when a song or tune is closely associated with a particular artist, the way Hit Parade of Love is thought of as Jimmy Martin song, other major artists will shy away from doing covers. I have included two notable exceptions. The Seldom Scene included Hit Parade of Love on their 1976 Rebel Records LP, Live at the Cellar Door. John Starling is playing guitar and singing lead, John Duffey is on mandolin and tenor, Ben Eldridge is on banjo, Mike Auldridge is on dobro, and Tom Gray is on bass. Rhonda Vincent and the Rage would record the song in 2007, for release in August, 2008, on her Rounder Records CD entitled Good Thing Going. Kenny Ingram is picking banjo; shortly after this recordng was made, he would leave the rage to play with the Larry Stephenson Band, and would be replaced by Aaron McDaris. I have picked out five YouTube videos I thought were of particular merit. The first is a live performance of a band from Maine called the Misty Mountaineers, at the Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival in Litchfield, Maine, in June, 2007. The banjo player is Suzie Gibson, who used to live in the Boston area, and was a regular at the Billerica jam sessions. A Michigan band called Greensky Bluegrass performed Hit Parade of Love at the at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland, Oregon in March, 2011. The audio is not real crisp, but the banjo picker, Mike Bont, is great fun to watch. The next video is a live performance of the Skip Cherryholmes Quintet, at the Red, White, and Bluegrass Festival in Morganton North Carolina, on July 4, 2012. The banjo picker is Gina Britt. The Yonder Mountain String Band is playing Hit Parade of Love in the next video, from a concert at the at the House Of Blues in Chicago, Illinois, in October, 2012. The banjo picker is Dave Johnson. The last video is a live performance by former Sunny Mountain Boys J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, and Paul Williams, at the Annual Vine Grove Bluegrass Festival in Vine Grove, Kentucky, in September, 2013. You just can't beat Crowe's bluegrass picking. That is probably Jason Barie on fiddle, a regular member of Doyle Lawson's band Quicksilver. |
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| Notes: We
are going to return this week with our review of the picking style of Don
Reno. Remington Ride was one of Reno's signature pieces, extravagantly
showcasing his use of the right-hand thumb brush to create an almosty tenor
banjo like sound when he wanted it. This was an unusual approach for bluegrass
five string, and was one of the trademark techniques that gave Reno's picking
its unique sound. Reno first recorded the tune sometime in the early to
mid 50s, when he was moonlighting as a back up musician for Arthur
"Guitar Boogie" Smith and his Carolina Crackerjacks, while
still playing with his long-time musical partner Red
Smiley. Smith was the host of a popular country music program on WBTV
in Charlotte, North Carolina called The Arthur Smith Show, and
it was with Smith who in 1955 wrote and recorded the original verison of
Dueling Banjos (he called Feuding Banjos), with Smith playing tenor and
Don Reno on five string. Smith would later sue and settle with Warner Brothers,
who produced the movie Deliverance, for a rumored $300,000. I have included
that recording, which has been reissued on a on a 2008 CMH compilation CD
called Fire
on the Banjo. However, for this lesson, I have used the rendition
that Reno recorded with Red Smiley for King Records in August, 1956. First
released as a single, it was later re-released in February, 1958 on a now
out of print King LP called Instrumentals and Ballads. It has been
reissued by County Records as part of a four CD box set Reno
& Smiley and the Tennessee Cut-Ups: 1951-1959. Remington Ride is actually a composition by steel guitar legend Herb Remington, who was the steel guitar player for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys through the late forties, playing on some of Will's best hits, including Deep Water, Bubbles in My Beer, and Blues for Dixie. He left Wills in 1949 to join western swing singer and comedian Hank Penny, composing and recording Remington Rag with Penny in March, 1950. He would record the tune at least six more times; this is the original recording with Penny, released as a single in December, 1950, and re-released in 1959 on an out of pring Audia Lab LP called Hank Penny Sings. Remington Ride has since become a standard for both banjo pickers and steel players, I have attached a few of special interest. The third MP3 is a wildly jazzy version by five string wizard Tony Trischka, on his first solo album for Rounder Records, now out of print, called Tony Trischka: Bluegrass, released in 1973. This cut features fiddler Kenny Kosek on guitar and Andy Statman on mandolin and soprano sax. It was reissued by Rounder on a 1998 CD called The Early Years. Some might not describe this cut as bluegrass. Alan Munde also recorded Remington Ride on a now out of print solo Ridge Runner LP called The Banjo Kid Picks Again, released in 1980, with Joe Carr on guitar, Roland White on mandolin, and Michael Anderson on bass. This album was re-released- with additional cuts- as a CD by Rounder in 1994, under the new title Blue Ridge Express. Munde departs quite a bit from Reno's original arrangement, but more subtly than Trischka. I have picked out four YouTube video versions of Remington Ride that I thought were especially interesting. The first is a live 1984 appearance by The Doug Dillard Band on David Holt's TNN TV Show Fire on the Mountain. The late Doug Dillard is on banjo, with Ginger Boatwright on guitar, Jonathan Yudkin on fiddle, and Cathy Chiavola on bass. The second video is a banjo lesson by Jason Skinner, a picker from Bristol, Tennessee who has made it his musical life's work to preserve the legacy of Don Reno. Skinner ably demonstrates Remington Ride up close, including the thumb brush technique. The third video is a recent live performance by Herb Remington, the steel guitar master himself, at the 2009 Texas Steel Guitar Association's Jamboree. The last video features a live jam at the Mandolin Brothers instrument shop on Staten Island in September, 2012, with the great Noam Pikelny on banjo, Chris Thile on mandolin, and Chris Eldridge on guitar. All three are members of the Punch Brothers progressive bluegrass/acoustic music ensemble. Pikelny's incredibly picking takes Reno "single string" style to a new level. |
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Cowboys
and Indians TEF Cowboys and Indians Left Hand Patterns Cowboys and Indians MP3 (Emerson) Cowboys and Indians MP3 (Mills) Cowboys and Indians BHO MP3 (Wheeler) Cowboys and Indians BHO MP3 (Batchelor) Cowboys and Indians BHO MP3 (Britton) Cowboys and Indians YouTube (Gentlemen, 1971) Cowboys and Indians YouTube (Gentlemen, 2009) Cowboys and Indians YouTube (Delaney) Cowboys and Indians YouTube (Pankey) TOP |
Notes: This week will be our first combined lesson, and for the tune we will be learning the banjo instrumental Cowboys and Indians, by Bill Emerson. Emerson first recorded the tune in February, 1971, during his time with the County Gentlemen, shortly after returning to the band after Eddie Adcock's departure in 1970. The instrumental was released by Rebel Records in October, 1971, on the now out of print LP Sound Off. The band also included Charlie Waller on guitar, Jimmy Gaudreau on mandolin, and Bill Yates on bass. It has been rereleased by Rebel on a four CDS set called Country Gentlemen: Early Rebel Recordings. The tune is modulates between C minor in the A part, and C major in the B part, and is set on banjo in standard tuning (gCGBD). Jim Mills incliuded a cover of Cowboys and Indians on his 2005 Sugar Hill abum Hide Head Blues, with Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Dan Tyminski on guitar, Adam Steffey on: mandolin, and Barry Bales on bass. In the original 1971 Country Gentleman cut, only the banjo takes a complete break, so while the banjo tab is based on Emerson's classic rendition, I have borrowed Stuart Duncan's fiddle break from the Mills recording for the tab. On both recordings, the banjo back-up is basically just a repeat of the melody rolls. Since you will likely be jamming with other banjo players, I have instead tabbed out a simple closed chord back-up, so you can learn the positions for the various chords used in the tune. This is not a simple three chord progression. Jim Mills is just about the only other top-tier professional bluegrass picker to have covered Cowboys and Indians. However, quite a few top pickers on the Banjo hangout have uploaded recordings; I have picked out three of special merit. Virginian Billy Wheeler has been playing professionally for over three decades, picking with Cliff Waldren, Larry Stephenson, Charlie Moore, Mac Wiseman, Bill Harrel, and the Lonseome River Band, among others. He uploaded his fine performance in February, 2010. John Mark Batchelor is a young picker from Back Swamp, North Carolina, who has played with Audie Blaylock and Michael Cleveland. He uploaded his rendition in August, 2011. Jim Britton is a banjo pikcing minister from Riddleton, Tennessee, who has played with both Larry Sparks and Jim and Jesse. He uploaded his fine version in February, 2014. I have also selected four YouTube performances
of Cowboys and Indians worth noting. The first is a live performance by
the Country Gentlemen, taped sometime betweem 1970 and 1973, when Emerson
eventually left to form the U.S. Navy's bluegrass band, Country Currents.
Jimmy Gaudreau has been replaced in the line-up by Doyle Lawson. Charlie
Waller, the long time leader of the Country Gentlemen, passed away in
2004; his place was taken by his son, Randy
Waller, who bears a remarkable resemblence to his father both in appearance
and vocal style. The second video is a performance of the Gentlemen with
Randy in the lead, from a February, 2009 concert in Fayetteville, Tennessee.
The banjo picker is Adam Poindexter, who also played for many years with
James King. The Delaney
Brothers are a fine bluegrass band from Central New York; this video
is from a live performance uploaded in August, 2012. Nick
Piccininni is playing banjo, one of the few banjo renditions to go
stretch out beyond the original Emerson recording. The last video is actually
a on-line lesson, uploaded by
Jim Pankey of Chatsworth Georgia. He currently plays with the Lone
Mountain Band. |
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Lesson
59 |
Notes: This week we are going to have our first review lesson, looking back at three lessons based upon classic Flatt & Scruggs recordings. All are in the key of G, in open G tuning on the banjo, so there will be no need to retune or move the capo while you review. One of the lessons were originally shared by both of you, and two are instrumentals. | |
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Lesson
60 |
Notes: For this week's lesson we are going to learn an arrangement of the country folk classic, Take Me Home, Country Roads, written Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and by the late John Denver. The lesson is based on the cover recording by Russell Moore and III Tyme Out, from their 2012 Cracker Barrell CD entitled Timeless Hits From the Past Bluegrassed. Russell Moore is doing the vocal and playing guitar, Keith McKinnon is picking the banjo,Wayne Benson is on mandolin, Justin Haynes is playing the fiddle, and Blake Johnson is on bass. I have replaced the fiddle break in the tab with a repeat of the banjo break. Another change from the cover recording- on the recording, McKinnon plays an open position, roll based back up throughout, but I have substituted a simple closed posiiton back for the second verse and chorus, so you will know where the closed chords are if you find yourself in a large jam session with multiple banjo pickers. The Osborne Brothers also recorded Country Roads, for their now out of print 1971 Decca LP entitled Country Roads. The session included Ray Edenton and former texas Troubadore Leon Rhodes on guitar, Weldon Myrick and Hal Rugg on pedal steel, Ronnie Reno on fiddle, William Ackerman on drums, Hargas Robbins on piano, and Ray Kirkland on bass. This is from the brothers modern country period, and Sonny does not take a lead break on this recording. Special Consensus recorded Country Roads for their new Compass Records CD, Country Boy: A Bluegrass Tribute to John Denver, just released. On this cut, band leader and banjo picker Greg Cahill splits a break with mandolinist Rick Feris. Dustin Benson and former NewGrass Revival member John Cowan provided vocals and guitars, Jason Carter of the Del McCoury Band played fiddle, and Dan Eubanks was on bass. I have also included the original recording by John Denver, which he recorded in February, 1971. This recording featured Eric Weissberg on pedal steel and banjo. RCA first released it as a single and then later in June, it was included on an RCA LP entitled Poems, Prayers And Promises. Both III Tyme Out and the Osborne Brothers have reprised their renditions of Country Roads in live performances which have been uploaded as videos to YouTube. The III Tyme Out performance was recorded in the studios of the Washington, D.C. all bluegrass radio station WAMU in February, 2012. The Osborne Brothers video is from a live concert in Sweden in 1980. Stripped of all the Nashville country session musicians, this rendition sounds more like bluegrass than the slick studio recording, but still no banjo break. The Kruger Brothers did a fine version of Country Roads during a holiday concert in Switzerland in December 2010. Jens Kruger plays some fine back up, but no lead break here either. On March 8, 2014, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed into law a bill making Take Me Home, Country Roads the official song of the State of West Virginia. |
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Lesson
61 |
Notes: The new lesson for this week is the old Columbus Stockade Blues, as recorded by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys for Decca Records in 1962. Monroe uncharacteristically plays this as a medium tempo country blues, rather than as an up-tempo number, which gives the banjo picker, Tony Ellis, a chance to do some fine honky-tonk style picking. Frank Buchanan was on guitar, and Benny Williams and Harold "Red" Stanley played twin fiddles. It was first issued on Decca's now out of pring LP entitled Bluegrass Special in June, 1963. It was reissued by MCA Nashville on a two CD set called Bill Monroe: Anthology. Columbus Stockade Blues was originally written by early country music pioneers Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton. Their performance was recorded in Atlanta on April 5, 1927, by Ralph Peer for Columbia Records. Darby played guitar and sang, while Tarlton sang and played hawaiian style guitar, one of the first instances of the lap steel guitar style being used in country music. Their recording has been reissued many times, including a 2005 Acrobat Music CD called Darby and Tarlton: Ooze It Up To Me. The next MP3 features Beecher Ray Kirby, better known as Bashful Brother Oswald, singing and playing clawhammer banjo, backed up by guitarist Charlie Collins. Kirby/Oswald was best know as Roy Acuff's long time steel guitar player. In his Rounder solo albums, however, he performs in the good-natured tradition of the clawhammer banjoist/comedian, epitomized by Granda Jones and Dave "Stringbean" Akeman. This recording was done for Oswald and Collins' second solo album for Rounder called That's Country, released in 1975. It has been recently reissued on an RME CD called Oswald: Carry Me Back. Doc Watson recorded Columbus Stockade Blues at least three times; this is his first recording, done for his out of print 1974 United Artists LP called Doc Watson: Memories. The banjo picker is Courtney Johnson, the fiddler is Sam Bush. There are quite a few renditions of Columbus Stockade Blues uploaded to YouTube; I have selected three I felt were of particular interest. The first is a great performance by the Reno Brothers, from a 1994 episode of Ronnie Reno's television program, The Reno Old Time Music Festival. Ronnie Reno is playing mandolin, Don Wayne Reno is on banjo, and Dale Reno is on guitar. This performance is available from County Sales on a DVD entitled The Best of the Reno Brothers. The second video from a live concert by Tony Trischka & Territory, appearing at Joe's Pub in New York City, in December, 2010. Banjo wizard Noam Pikelny sits in with the band, and kicks off this number, and jams it up at 2:00. Trischka comes in at 1:15, and again at 2:58. Michael Daves is on guitar, and Mike Barnett is fiddling. The last video is a very blues flavored version performed by country music iconoclast Leon Russell, from a live performance at the Loveless Cafe in Nashville, in November, 2013. The occasional nice banjo back-up you hear is coming from Butch Robbins. |
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Notes: The
tune for this week is going to be Don
Reno's original instrumental, Banjo Signal. Don Reno first recorded
this in 1954, in his early days with Red
Smiley. It was released by King Records on a now out of print LP called
Instrumentals and Ballads. Reno later recorded the tune during
his partnership with Bill Harrell, at a live concert in McClure, Virginia
around 1976. It was included in an MCH CD called Don
Reno, Founding Father of Bluegrass Banjo, released in 2001. I
have included and used both recodings in preparing the tablature for this
lesson. Note that the orignal Reno
and Smiley version of Banjo Signal is structurally inconsistent. The
initial banjo and fiddle breaks follow an A-B-A pattern, coming back to
the A part after completing the B part, which functions like a bridge.
But this structure is dropped, or parts are dropped, as the recording
progresses, probably to make room so that it could fit within the time
limitations of a 45 rpm disk. In his later 1976 recording, Reno plays
it with a standard A-B format, as do bluegrass pickers today, so I have
stuck to that format here. I have included two other interesting covers of Banjo Signal in MP3 format. The first is a quick insturmental by Frank "Hylo" Brown and his Timberliners, recorded for Rural Rhythm in late 1966 or early 1967. The banjo picker is Jim Smoak, Red Rector is on mandolin, and the fiddler is Clarence "Tater" Tate, who also played for a time with Reno and Harrell. This recording is included on a Rural Rhythm CD called Hylo Brown and the Timberliners. The other recording is a banjo duet by Hee Haw star Roy Clark, and country banjoist Buck Trent, who played for many years with Porter Wagoner. This is from their double banjo album Banjo Bandits, released by MCA Nashville in 1978. There are quite a number of uploads of Banjo Signal on YouTube; I have picked out three that I thought were of special interest. The first is a video from a bluegrass workshop jam session in Paramus, New Jersy, in April, 2011, featuring banjo genius Tony Trischka, and mandsolin legend Frank Wakefield. Wakefield was 82 when this video was made, and is definitely struggling on this tune, but Trischka is on his game. The guitar player is Dan Marcus, who used to live in the Boston area, and is also an excellent banjo player. The second video is a live performance by Karl Shiflett and Big Country Show, from the Beanblossom Festival in June, 2013. The banjo picker is 19 year old Brennen Ernst of Leesburg, Virginia, and he really flows through the Reno style single string licks in this performance. The last video was posted by Reno officiando Jason Skinner in February, 2014. Skinner offers Reno style lessons online at renopicker.com. Most pickers don't realize that the tune title is a pun. A "banjo signal" was another name for a type of railroad signal called the Hall disc signal, the first electronically operated signal to be adopted by the railroads, introduced around 1870.
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Lesson
63 |
Our lesson this week is the melodic banjo tour de force, the
fiddle tune Blackberry Blossom. The lesson is based on a recording by five
string master Alan
Munde, from his influential solo banjo LP, Banjo
Sandwich, released by Ridgerunner records in 1975. Munde learned
the tune from a jam tape of Bill Keith, borrowed from banjo picker Ed Shelton.
Munde is joined by Dave Ferguson on fiddle, Roland
White on mandolin, Doc Hamilton on guitar, and Roger Bush on bass. Munde's
back-up behind the mandolin and fiddle is the trickiest part of the lesson,
and will take longer to learn than the lead breaks. In the A part of the
tune, the chords change with every beat. In order to make the lesson more
accessible, a basic closed chord exercise has also been included. Blackberry Blossom is a traditional fiddle tune, one of several with that title. This version was popularized by Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, a very influential Nashville fiddle player who recorded from the mid-30s through the early 60s. Blackberry Blossom was his first commercial recording, for Bluebird Records in August, 1935. Smith was backed up in this session by the Delmore Brothers, Alton and Rabon, who would go on to become a very popular country duo in their own right, influencing the vocal styles of later country and bluegrass musicians with their tight harmonies. Blackberry Blossom was also a signature tune for bluegrass guitar pioneer Clarence White, who recorded the tune with his brother Roland on a now out of print Rounder Records album called The New Kentucky Colonels Live in Sweden. Recorded in April, 1973, the recording featured Clarence White on guitar, Roland White on mandolin, Alan Munde on banjo, and Eric White on bass. Clarence White died four months later, after being struck by a drunk dirver. He was 29 years old. Guitar impresario Tony Rice recorded Blackberry Blossom twice, first on a Rounder Records album, Manzanita, with his band The Tony Rice Unit, in February, 1978, and then eleven years later on his second guitar duet album with Norman Blake, called Norman Blake and Tony Rice 2, released by Rounder in 1989. The Tony Rice Unit included Tony Rice on guitar, Sam Bush and David Grisman on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Ricky Skaggs and Darol Anger on fiddle, and Todd Phillips on bass. Blake and Rice were joined by Nancy Blake on mandolin and cello, the legendary Doc Watson on guitar, and Mark Schatz on bass. Clawhammer legend Reed Martin also recorded Blackberry Blossom, on his groundbreaking melodic clawhammer CD Old Time Banjo, recorded in 1998. There are quite a few YouTube uploads of Blackberry Blossom; I have singled out four as particularly interesting. The first is a december, 2010 audio upload (with photo montage) from a CD entitled Bluegrass Harmonica, featuring harmonica player David Naiditch and West Coast five string wizard Pat Cloud. This is a rare opportunity to hear Cloud's sparking and jazzy style. The second is a neat five-string banjo duet by pickers Butch Osborne and Stephen Moore, uploaded in January, 2011. Osborne plays with the Johnny Staats and the Delivery Boys; Moore has his own group, Almost Famous Bluegrass. The third video is a quick run through by 12 year up-and-coming picker Willow Osborne. The last is a live performance by the melodic pioneer himself, Bill Keith, playing at a wedding in August, 2013. |
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Lesson
64 |
Notes: This
week's lesson, by request, is the Bluegrass Breakdown, first recorded
by the Bill
Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys for Columbia Records in Chicago on October
27, 1947. The band line-up for this recording constitutes what many bluegrass
officiandos consider the first and archetypal bluegrass band, with Monroe
on mandolin, Lester
Flatt on guitar, 23 year old Earl
Scruggs on banjo, Chubby
Wise on fiddle, and Howard Watts on bass. This was the first recording
to feature Earl Scruggs' lighting fast three finger style of playing.
If it sounds close to Earl's later instrumental, Foggy Mountain Breakdown,
there is good reason for that. According to Earl, in an NPR
interview taped in 2003, he wrote Bluegrass Breakdown as a banjo instrumental
when he first joined the Bluegrass Boys, but Monroe, as the band leader,
insisted on taking writer's credit and thus copyright ownership of all
songs and tunes composedby band members. So Monroe is credited with writeing
Bluegrass Breakdown. When Flatt and Scruggs left Monroe a year after this
recording was made, in order to form the Foggy
Mountain Boys, they altered the signature instrumental by changing
the F chord to an E minor chord (E major in Lester's guitasr back-up),
and changed the name to Foggy Mountain Breakdown. They recorded the "new"
tune for Mercury Records in Cincinnati in December, 1949, just two years
after the recording of Bluegrass Breakdown, and the rest is history. Scruggs
was able to retire on the roylaties for FMB alone. I have included the
1949 recording of Foggy Mountain Breakdown just for comparison. I have included a copy of several other YouTube videos that I think are worth listening to. The first is a live performance of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys from a live 1965 performance on the Grand Old Opry television show, with left handed banjoist Don Lineburger on the five-string, the great Gene Lowinger is playing the fiddle, Pete Rowan is on guitar, and Monroe's son James is on bass. The ssecond is from a September, 2008 concert in Pigeon forge, Tennessee, by the Del McCoury Band, with Robbie McCoury on banjo and Ronnie McCoury on mandolin. The last is a video of a live performance by Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, at the Cumberland Caverns in May, 2010, with the incomparable Jim Mills on banjo. Mills' break starts at 1:06. |
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Notes: This
week's lesson, by request, features the tune Santa Claus, recorded by
Bill
Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys on March 27, 1963, one of handful of
sessions that featured the melodic pioneer Bill
Keith, who had only joined the band two weeks earlier. Also included
in the session were Kenny
Baker on fiddle, Jackie Phelps on guitar, and Besse Mauldin on bass.
Keith's break on Santa Claus has become a melodic banjo standard. I've
also included some of his up-the-neck noodling back-up that he plays behind
Kenny Baker's fiddling. Santa Claus was issued in 1965 on a now out of
print Decca Records album called Bluegrass Instrumentals. It
has been included by County Records on a four CD set called Bill
Monroe '1959 - 1969'. I found two videos on YouYube that were worth noting. The first, by banjo wizard Bill Knopf, uploaded in February, 2014, features a very jazzy chromatic style break, of the sort that was very popular among newgrass pickers back in the mid-seventies, before players like Bela Fleck started using the more flexible single-string guitar style first popularized by Don Reno. I have included that second, chromatic break, which starts at 0:41, in today's lesson. The second video features a live performance by the New England bluegrass band Hot Mustard, at the Next Stage in Putney, Vermont, in November, 2013. Hot Mustard features Bruce Stockwell on banjo, April Jubett on guitar, Bill Jubett on fiddle (and sometimes second banjo), and Kelly Stockwell on bass. |
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Lesson
66 |
Notes: The subject of this week's lesson is Don't Let Your Deal Go Down, an early country blues song that makes use of a so-called "circle of fifth's" chord progression, reflecting the influence of ragtime on early country music. The tablature starts with Earl Scruggs' classic kick-off, recorded by the Foggy Mountain Boys in August, 1957, and later included in their now out-of-print album for Columbia's Harmony label, called Flatt and Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys, released in 1960. It has been included on their compilation CD, 'Tis Sweet To Be Remembered: The Essential Flatt & Scruggs, released by Columbia/Legacy in 1997. The dobro break imbedded in the lesson tab is taken from Josh Graves' break on this recording. However, the tab also includes a slightly more progressive sounding banjo break from Bill Keith, from his 1992 Green Linnett album Beating Around the Bush, included as a contrast with Scruggs' now traditional bluegrass approach. This week's song was first recorded under the title Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers for Columbia Records in July, 1925. Poole played banjo in a three-finger up-picking style which was widely imitated, influencing many pre-bluegrass banjo pickers pior to WWII. Poole also provided the vocal. The other ramblers were Posey Rorer on fiddle, and Norman Woodlieff on guitar. The Poole recording was widely copied by other early country performers; it has been reissued on a Doxy Records compilation called Charlie Poole, the Complete Recordings, issued in 2014. It was in the repertiore of Grand Ol' Opry pioneers Sam and Kirk McGee, who recorded a version in 1957 for Folkways records, though not released until 1968, on an album called Milk 'Em In The Evening Blues. Sam is playing the six-string guitar banjo, while Kirk is playing a five-string. The legendary Texas fiddle Benny Thomasson recorded an instrumental version for County Records in 1969, released on an out of print album called Country Fiddling From The Big State, it has been reissued and expanded by County on a new CD called Benny Thomasson: Legendary Texas Fiddler. Even before the Charlie Poole recording, the song was likely a long time in the repertoire of traditional Piedmont African-American blues musicians, which, according to Poole historian and interpreter Kinny Rorrer, is how Poole first learned it second hand. Etta Baker (1913-2006), Bill Williams (1897-1973), and John Jackson (1924-2002), all knew a version of the song. The phrase "let your deal go down" refers to the Georgia Skin Game, a card game popular among African-American gamblers in the first half of the 20th century. Bill William's version of the song is illustrative of that tradition. It was recorded in Williams home by Morehouse College folkorist Leonard W. Roberts in 1961, and released in 2010 on a Smithsonian Folkways compilation CD entitled Classic Appalachian Blues. Thanks to the Flatt & Scruggs 1957 recording, Don't Let Your Deal Go Down has become a bluegrass jam standard. I've picked a few recordings of some interest. The Flying Burrito Brothers, the country rockers during their more bluegrassy phase, included a live performance on their 1971 album, the last made by the original members, called Last of the Red Hot Burritos. The line-up included Rick Robertson guitar, Chris Hillman on mandolin, Kenny Wertz on banjo, Al Perkins on steel guitar, Byron Berline on fiddle, and Roger Bush on bass. Bluegrass great Mac Wiseman sang a "countryfied" version of the song on his 1989 CMH album Grassroots To Bluegrass, backed up by "The Masters," including Eddie Adcock on lead guitar (not banjo), Josh Graves on dobro, Jesse McReynolds on mandolin, Kenny Baker on fiddle, and Missy Raines on bass. Bill Keith recorded his version in 1992, with Jim Rooney on guitar and vocal, and likely Kenny Kosek of fiddle. The progressive bluegrass group Yonder Mountain String Band included the song on their 2008 Frog Pads Records 2 CD set, Mountain Tracks, Vol. 5. YMSB includes Adam Aijala on guitar, Dave Johnston on banjo, Allie Kral on fiddle, Jacob Jolliff on mandolin, and Ben Kaufmann on bass. Jerry Douglas's band, The Earls of Leicester, included the song on their 2014 Rounder Records CD called The Earls of Leicester. There are quite a number of YouTube uploads of
Don't Let Your deal Go Down; I've picked four I thought were of some interest.
it will be no surprise that the firat is a video of Flatt
and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys performing the number on their
television show from February, 1962, sponsored by the Martha White flour.
This is from the first volume of a 10 DVD set, called Best
Of The Flatt & Scruggs TV Show. This is the classic Foggy
Mountain Boys line-up, with Josh Graves on dobro, Paul Warren on fiddle,
Curly Seckler
on mandolin, and Jake Tullock on bass. The great Doc
Watson is on guitar and vocal in the second video, from a 1971 live
performance, with Mike
Seeger on banjo and Kirk
Sutphin on fiddle. The third video features Kinny
Rorrer, in a video uploaded in June, 2012. Rorrer is the great nephew
of both Charlie Poole and Posey Rorer, and probably Poole's leading interpreter
on banjo today. Rorrer also picks the tune in Poole's three finger style
in an interview
with David Holt, for the latter's UNC-TV television series, called
Folkways. Finally, the Earls of Leicester performed Don't Let
Your deal Go Down at the Washington DC Bluegrass Festival in February,
2015. The Earls are Douglas on dobro, Charlie
Cushman on banjo, Shawn
Camp on guitar and vocal, Frank
Solivan on mandolin, Johnny Warren on fiddle, and Barry Bales on bass.
Johnny
Warren, Paul Warren's son, is also a professional golfer. |
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Lesson
67 |
Notes: This week's lesson is a brief journey over time through the evolution of the banjo style of bluegrass great J.D. Crowe, using several of his performances on the great Jimmie Skinner tune You Don't Know My Mind. The lesson tablature starts with Crowe's classic intro on Jimmy Martin's definitive rendition first recorded for Decca Records in January, 1960, when Crow was only 22 years old. The back-up is also loosely based on this recording. The second break is from an album by guitar great Tony Rice, called California Autumn, recorded for Rebel records in August, 1971. Here Crowe departs almost completely from his original take, and borrows some of the progressive banjo stylers in vogue at the time, including some heavily arpeggiated chord phrasing, and even a quick Keith style melodic lick. The last break is from a video of a 1990 live performance by Tony Rice and friends on David Holt's old TNN television show American Music Shop. Here Crowe returns to his original, now derigeur kick off, almost identical to his Sunny Mountain Boy intro from thirty years earlier. For his second break, which starts around 2:47, he does some amazing, extreme boogie-style banjo picking that he is known for, requiring some demanding right hand work. One note- when I listen to the original break recorded in 1960, it seems to me that the boogie style slurs in the 5th and 6th measures are gotten by choking the strings, but in the 1990 video, it is clear that he is hammering-on. I have tabbed them out as hammers, but they could be done either way. Martin's original cover of You Don't Know My Mind was released by Decca in May, 1960, on an album on an out-of-print album called Good'n Country. This session features Jimmy Martin, guitar and vocal; J.D. Crowe, banjo; Paul Williams, mandolin; Benny Martin, fiddle; Jumior Husky, bass. It was Martin's first LP. This cut, to my knowledge, has not been reissued, but a later recording from 1990, with Lynwood Lunsford on banjo, has been included on a number of Martin compilations, including the 2009 Gusto Records CD, Jimmy Martin, 20 Greatest Hits. Jimmie Skinner was a Cincinnati-based country & western singer who recorded for a number of labels from the late-forties to the early sixties, including Radio Artist, King, Capitol, Decca, and Mercury. You Don't Know My Mind was recorded in April, 1950, for Radio Artist Records, the label of his manager, Lou Epstein. The personnel included "Lucky" Moore on lead guitar, and Raymond "Curly" Lunsford on electric mandolin. For years, Skinner owned and operated The Jimmie Skinner Music Center, a record shop on East 5th Street in downtown Cincinnati that was the place to go for country music recordings, when I was growing up. His recording of You Don't Know My Mind has been recently reissued on a Ap Music Limited CD called The Country Roots of Rock 'N' Roll, that includes Hank Garland's Sugarfoot Rag, and Bill Monroe's Six White Horses. In addition to the landmark Jimmy Martin recording, and the original Jimmie Skinner recording, I have included two other audio files of You Don't Know My Mind. The first is from the landmark 1972 United Artists album entitled Will the Circle Be Unbroken, produced by the folk/rock group The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which featured a large number of bluegrass and country guest artists, including Jimmy Martion, who reprised several of his bluegrass hits. This influential album helped spread bluegrass and traditional country music to a much larger urban audience. On this cut, the likely personnel are Jimmy Martin, guitar and vocal, John McEuen, banjo, Vassar Clements on fiddle, Jimmie Fadden on harmonica and Junior Husky on bass. Also included is the cut from Tony Rice's Rebel album California Autumn, which featured J. D. Crowe on banjo, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Larry Rice on mandolin, Ricky Skaggs on fiddle, and Tom Gray on bass. I have included five YouTube videos that I found
particularly interesting. The first is from a live performance by the
man himself, Jimmy Martin, performing live at the Slagle's Pasture Bluegrass
festival, in Elizabethton, Tennessee, in June, 1988. The banjo picker
is an unsung master, Chris
Warner. The second video is taken from a 1990 appearance by Tony Rice
and friends on David Holt's television show, American Music Shop, and
features an all-star line-up with Tony
Rice on guitar, J.D. Crowe on banjo, David
Grisman on mandolin, Jerry
Douglas on dobro, Mark
O'Connor on fiddle, and Glen Worf on bass. The last break in today's
lesson is taken from this video. Next is a live performance by J.D. Crowe
and the New South at the Sugar Maple Bluegrass Festival in Madison Wiconsin,
in August, 2009. The New South members at that time were J.D. Crowe on
banjo, Rickey Wasson on guitar, Dwight
McCall on mandolin, the great Ron
Stewart on fiddle, Matt DeSpain on dobro, and Kyle Perkins on bass.
The fourth video features the Harley Allen Band at the Station Inn in
Nashville, Tn. on March 19, 2010. The band includes Harley
Allen on guitar, Barry Crabtree on banjo, Josh Matheny on dobro, David
Harvey on mandolin, and Andy Todd on bass. Last is a live duet performance
by two of the rising talents in contemporary bluegrass, Noam
Pikelny and Michael
Davies, from a concert at the Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, New York,
on May 12, 2014. Note that Pikelny kicks of the song with a banjo introduction
that pays complete homage to Crowe's original introduction, before gradually
getting wilder and crazier in each of his later breaks. |
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Lesson
68 |
Notes: This
week's lesson, by request, is Hold Watcha Got, a song written by the legendary
"King of Bluegrass," and recorded in November, 1958 by Jimmy
Martin and his Sunny Mountain Boys for their first LP, now out of
print, called Good 'N" Country, released by Decca Records
in May, 1960. Martin played guitar and sang the lead vocal, J.D.
Crowe was on banjo, Paul
Williams played mandolin, the great Chubby
Wise played fiddle, and Lightin'
Chance played bass. Crowe
was only 21 years old the day of the recording session. His now classic
Reno-style single string intro and back-up was extremely progressive banjo
picking in 1958, especially the pentatonic blues scale that he employs
for some of his phrases. The song is in the key of F; Crowe picks in it
open G tuning, without a capo, but with the 5th string tuned up to A in
order to harmonize with the F chord. (Note that Martin is playing using
key of E position on the guitar, with his capo placed on the first fret,
in order to be in F.) In bluegrass, musicians generally adhere to the
dictum "if it works, don't fix it," and Crowe throughout his
career remained remarkably faithful to his work on the original recording,
as did most of the pickers who played the song after him. In putting together
thr tab for this lesson, I borrowed from several of the available Crowe
performances on this song, starting with the intro itself. In the original
recording, Crowe does some single string picking for about 8 measures,
or 16 beats, before Martin and mandolinist Paul Warren launch into the
chorus. But in their 1987 live reunion performance, Martin and Warren
miss their cue, and force Crowe to keep noodling for another 8 measures,
where he throws out some interesting variations on the original intro.
I have tabbed this longer intro for the lesson, just in case they miss
the cue in one of your jams sessions as well. In the same vein, on the
original Decca recording, the one instrumental break is done as a split
break, with fiddler Chubby Wise playing the first 8 measures, and Crowe
picking the last 8, using the same single-string phrasing he used for
the intro and back-up. But in the 1987 live performance, Warren is apparently
not prepared to take a break, so Crowe plays the entire 16 measure interlude,
the first half in his signature honky-tonk style, and the second half
following the single-string formula he used in the intro. These first
8 honky-tonk measures are just about the only place he hits the 5th string,
which is how Ii discovered he had tuned it up. Again, you will need to
be prepared to play it as a split break in a jam session, if the other
msuicians are familiar with the original recording. The back up was hard
to hear on the original recording, so I also mined a number of the later
recordings that Crowe played on to better hear some of his back-up work.
I have created an exercise for some of his closed position back-up, in
order to practice the right hand patterns that I believe he is occasionally
employing. There are quite a few covers of Hold Watcha Got
posted on YouTube; I have selected five I thought were of special interest.
The first is the from the 1987 Sunny Mountain Boys reunion concert mentioned
above, featuring Jimmy Martin, J.D. Crowe, and Paul Williams, at the Frontier
Ranch Bluegrass Festival in Columbus Ohio. The three were all in on the
original 1958 recording session. The second video is from a live performance
of the progressive Yonder
Mountain String Band, at a live concert at the Minnesota Zoo in June,
2010. The band includes Jeff
Austin on mandolin, Dave
Johnston on banjo, Adam
Aijala on guitar, and Ben
Kaufmann on bass. In the third video, we have a New England bluegrass
band, Hot
Mustard, performing live at The Next Stage in Putney, Vermont, in
February 2011. The band is almost unique in that it features double banjo,
something I have not seen since the days of Country Cooking. The band
members are Bruce
Stockwell and Bill Jubett on banjos, April Hobart on guitar, and Kelly
Stockwell on bass. The fourth video takes me back to my youth in Cincinnati.
This is a live performance by Vernon
McIntyre's Appalachian Grass, at the Appalachian Festival at Coney
Island, at the southern tip of Cincinnati, on US 52, along the Ohio River.
Coney Island was once the site of Cincinnati's premier amusement park,
but was substantially reduced in scale in the early 70s, when its corporate
owners opened a much larger park north of the city. When I first started
to learn to pick, Vernon McIntyre was the premier banjo picker in the
Cincinnati area; he played a very hard driving Scruggs style, and was
the bad boy, the Waylon Jennings of the local bluegrass scene. back then
he was called "Junior," to distinguish him from his father,
Vernon "Boatwhistle" McIntyre Sr., who had played bass with
Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Earl Taylor,
and Jim McCall. At some point, Junior gave up the banjo and took up the
guitar. The rest of his band includes Kitty McIntyre on fiddle, Robert
Campbell on banjo, Mike Elliott on mandolin, and Tammy Powers on bass.
Note that, yet again, the banjo picker, Robert Campbell, pays homage to
Crowe. The last video goes way outside th box, bringing together country
rocker Ry
Cooder with Ricky Skaggs and his wife Sharon White, from a live concert
at Center Stage, in Atlanta, Georgia, just a few weeks ago, on April 3,
2016. instead of Crowe' classic banjo intro, we get Cooder riffing on
the blues with a glass bottleneck on his pinky, before Skaggs and his
wife break into the chorus. Something you haven't seen before. |
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*****
Copyright (c) 2011-2013 by Donald J. Borchelt
All rights reserved.