BANJO LESSONS
FRAN TESSICINI
| 1. Cripple Creek |
20. Dixie Breakdown 21. Remington Ride 22. Follow the Leader 23. Devil's Dream 24. Sailor's Hornpipe 25. Crazy Creek 26. Doin' My Time 27. Good Times Are Past and Gone 28. Foggy Mountain Special 29. Pain in My Heart 30. Big Spike Hammer 31. Homestead On the Farm 32. Old Home Place 33. Blackjack 34. Faded Love |
G
Tuning Instructions TEF Back
Up Exercise 01 TEF from Lesson
1 |
| LESSON
1 |
Notes: In this lesson we are going to review overall right hand timing and left hand fingering with the five string banjo standard Cripple Creek, 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. The Scruggs recording is from the classic Foggy Mountain Banjo album, recorded on Columbia- which apparently is back in print, and available from Amazon. The next three 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 1978 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, one of the last surviving rural North Carolina mountain musicians, just passed away last week. |
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LESSON 2 |
Notes: This week we are going to study Earl Scruggs' instrumental version of the old song Fireball Mail, both to help smooth out your forward roll, and to start you off playing up the neck. The Fireball Mail tab is based on the version from Earl Scruggs' classic Foggy Mountain Banjo album, recorded on Columbia- now out of print. 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 of Fireball Mail. I admit my singing leaves something to be desired, but I was the only one that could remember the lyrics! One of my favorite pickers is a friend of mine from the Banjo Hangout, Jim Reed, who is a mine electrician from eastern Kentucky; this is a Banjo Hangout posting he put up in 2009. Another great BHO posting comes from British super-picker Leon Hunt, originally from a CD put out by his band, Daily Planet, called Clark's Secret. Bluegrass legend Tim O'Brien guests, contributing the vocal. There are a number of fine performances posted on YouTube, including Flatt & Scruggs, from their 1950s Martha White TV show. Many of these Flatt & Scruggs shows are available in a series of 10 DVD's put out by the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Roy Acuff recording, made in 1942, is the classic that made the song famous. 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 in 1992, 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 bluesy and melodic variations all over the neck. | |
LESSON
3 (10/23/12) Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms TEF Right Hand Exercise 3, Reverse Roll TEF Back Up Exercise 3 TEF Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms MP3 (Scruggs) Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms YouTube (Scruggs) Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms YouTube (Monroe) Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms YouTube (Hartford) Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms YouTube (Watson) |
Notes: This lesson introduces the reverse roll, which has two basic forms, TIMTMITM and TITIMITM. Of course, both forms have variations. Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms prominently features the reverse roll; 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 second version is a video Flatt & Scruggs performing the number on a country music television show from the fifties. The next YouTube 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 Hartford, 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. | |
| 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. | ||
| Notes: In this lesson, we are going to do two new things- play in C tuning, and learn how to use the backward roll pattern. The tune is Wildwood Flower, an old Carter Family classic that was once the equivalent of Cripple Creek for country guitar pickers, the first tune that just about everyone learned. The first MP3 is the original Carter Family recording, made in May, 1928. This recording sold over a million copies in its first year. It is available on a number of Carter Family compilations, including a Country Classics CD called Wildwood Flower. The second MP3 is an instrumental by two of the top players in bluegrass nusic, David Grisman on mandolin, and Tony Rice on guitar, from a 2008 DualTone CD called The Appalachians. The first YouTube video is a concert performance of the late, great Chet Atkins, "Mr. Guitar," from the mid- to late- '50s. There are number of videos of Atkins playing this number on YouTube; this one is the best musically. The second YouTube video is a very pretty hammered dulcimer performance by Alisa Jones, from her 2009 Cumberland Records CD, also entitled Wildwood Flower. Jones is the daughter of the famous Grand Old Opry banjoist Grandpa Jones, and Romana Jones, who is probably the fiddle player on this number. | ||
LESSON
6 (12/4/12) Salty Dog Blues TEF Salty Dog Blues Lyrics Salty Dog Blues MP3 (Flatt & Scruggs) Let Me Be Your Salty Dog MP3 (Morris Brothers) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Flatt & Scruggs) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Allen Brothers) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Leadbelly) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (John Hurt) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Seckler) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Skaggs) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Lilly) Salty Dog Blues YouTube (Stephenson) |
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. There are a number of YouTube videos that are worth noting. Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys are performing the song in the first video, on their Martha White television show, taped in 1961. The Morris Brothers claimed writing credits for the song, but in fact, it is based closely on an older African American country blues song that was very close in melody, and shared many of the same lyrics. I've included three YouTube videos that demonstrate this. The first is an audio upload of a recording by the Allen Brothers, a white country duo that performed a lot of African American based numbers, from a 1926 Columbia record. This is available on a compilatin CD called The Allen Brothers: Old Time Blues Recordings, released by Vintage Masters Records. The second is a recording by Huddey Ledbetter, better known by his stage name Lead Belly, recorded for the Library of Congress in 1948. He died the following year. This is available on the Smithsonian Folkways compilation Lead Belly's Last Sessions. The last is an audio posting of Mississippi John Hurt's rendition of the song, from a live performance in 1963, available on a Vanguard Records CD entitled The Best Of Mississippi John Hurt, first released in 1970. There are a number of bluegrass covers of Salty Dog Blues, all owing a debt to the Flatt & Scruggs original. I've picked four that I think are the most interesting. The first is a 1985 live performance of Curly Seckler and the Nashville Grass, with Kenny Ingram on banjo. The Nashville Grass was Lester Flatt's back up band after he split with Earl Scruggs in 1969. After Flatt's death in 1979, Seckler took over the leadership of the band. The second video features Ricky Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder, with Jim Mills on banjo. This is from a live concert at the Cumberland Caverns in 2010, just before Mills left the group. The next video is a live 2010 performance by Mike Lilly, Wendy Miller and Country Grass. Lilly and Miller played with bluegrass legend Larry Sparks, before forming Country Grass in the mid-70s. Kenny Ingram shows up again, twenty-five years later, with the Larry Stephenson Band, his current gig, in a live California concert in September, 2011. You won't see much difference in the Salty Dog banjo work over those two and a half decades, because Kenny and all the others pretty much pick it like Earl. | |
LESSON
7 (12/18/12) Farewell Blues TEF Farewell Blues MP3 (Flatt & Scruggs) Farewell Blues YouTube (Country Cooking) Farewell Blues YouTube (Cloud, Arita & Furtado) Farewell Blues YouTube (Kaufman & Kropp) Farewell Blues (Goodman) Farewell Blues YouTube (Django Reinhardt) Farewell Blues YouTube (Sol Hoopi) |
Notes: This week we return to C Tuning (gCGBD), with Earl Scruggs' rendition of the old pop/jazz standard Farewell Blues. This is from the band's early Mercury sessions, and can be found on the reissue Flatt & Scruggs, The Complete Mercury Recordings. This instrumental provides great exercise in using close chord positions in C tuning. There are a number of good versions posted on YouTube. The first is a pirated version taken from one of the early Rounder LPs of the New York band Country Cooking, which featured double banjo by Tony Trishka and Pete Wernick. The two original Country Cooking albums have been reissued by Rounder on a single CD called Country Cooking, 26 Bluegrass Instrumentals. The second video is a 1992 jam session with Pat Cloud, Yoshihiro Arita, and Tony Furtado. The last bluegrass version is from a live performance in June, 2009, at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge, featuring Mike Kropp and Alan Kaufman. There are also three non-bluegrass YouTube recordings, for your interest, to help understand the context. The first is by Benny Goodman and his orchestra, from a 1938 Bluebird recording. This has been reissued on a 2000 Jazz Co CD entitled The Complete Benny Goodman (1938-1939). The second features Hawaiian lap steel guitar great Sol Hoopii, from a 1938 recording for Decca Records. This was reissued in 1986 by Rounder Records, on an album called Sol Hoopii: Master of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar. The last is an upload of a performance by gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, from a 1948 Capitol recording. This has been reissued on a 2011 Ideal Music compilation entitled Guitar Genius. | |
| 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
9 (1/29/13) Wreck of the Old 97 TEF Back Up Exercise 4 Wreck of the Old 97 Lyrics Wreck of the Old 97 YouTube (Flatt & Scruggs) Wreck of the Old 97 YouTube (Vernon Dalhart) Wreck of the Old 97 YouTube (Grayson & Whitter) Wreck of the Old 97 YouTube (Johnny Cash) Wreck of the Old 97 YouTube (Boxcar Willie) |
Notes: This week we are going to add another song to the repertoire in order to practice moving between lead and back-up, and to learn a new right hand back up lick. I have included an exercise for the new back-up lick, which uses the Wreck of the Old 97 chord progression. Lester and Earl's rendition of the Vernon Dalhart classic train wreck song actually comes from a clip taken from an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies that can be found on YouTube. It's still a classic Earl break! Dalhart's original version from a 1924 Victor recording has also been posted on YouTube. While it was Dalhart's version that popularized the song, the first recording was actually an Okeh record made a year earlier by Henry Whitter, the first country singer to record for a commercial label. Four years later, Whitter would form a duo with G.B. Grayson, and make some of country music's most influential early recordings. The Johnny Cash version is from a 1957 Sun record, with Luther Perkins on lead guitar. Wrapping it up is country music's hobo singer Boxcar Willie, whose classic train whistle vocal imitation is now de rigueur in old time country and western circles. This song commemorates an actual train wreck that occured in 1903. The locomotive jumped a trestle outside of Danville, Virginia, killing nine people. If the melody sounds familiar, that's because it was used again in 1949 for the song Charlie on the MTA. | |
LESSON
10 |
Notes: Foggy Mountain Top was for many years the theme song for Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and it gives us an opportunity to add a new new song, and a new lick for our back-up practice. This low break is Earl's, from the recording found on Flatt & Scruggs Columbia Record Songs Of The Famous Carter Family. I have added an up the neck break as an exercise in translation. Foggy Mountain Top was originally a hit for the pioneering country music group The Carter Family. Their 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, something you don't hear often enough in bluegrass. The third MP3 is a recording of Earl Taylor and Jim McCall, who were still playing aorund the Cincinnati area when I first began learning bluegrass banjo. This 1967 Rural Rhythm recording entitled Earl Taylor and Jim McCall with the Stoney Mountain Boys, 20 Bluegrass Favorites, has been reissued on a CD. Tim Spradlin is the banjo picker. Flatt & Scruggs reprised their performance of Foggy Mountain Top on their TV show, which has been posted on Youtube. The DVD, Flatt & Scruggs: Best Of Flatt & Scruggs TV Show, Vol. 9, is available from the Country Music Hall of Fame, As on the record, Mother Maybelle Carter appears on the TV show, but isn't allowed to sing. Strange. Maybe she wanted to yodel. A video of Maybelle performing the number with her sister and nieces has been uploaded to YouTube, and they leave the yodel to the end. A 1964 recording of the sisters is included on a Columbia/Legacy CD set entitled Keep On the Sunny Side - June Carter Cash: Her Life In Music. 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, either! This is on their CD The Three Pickers, released by Rounder Records in 2003. |
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| Notes: The tune this week is Cherokee Shuffle, legendary country fiddler Tommy Jackson's reworking of the old fiddle standard Lost Indian. The tablature is from the version by melodic pioneer Bill Keith, taken from his 1993 album for Linut Records, entitled Beating Around the Bush. I suspect that Keith is also playing pedal steel on this cut. This will be our first forey into melodic, or "Keith" style picking. In his early fiddle tune arrangements, Keith would commonly work his arrangements entirely in melodic style, but as time went on, he began to combine mellodic phrasing with traditional Scruggs style picking. His Cherokee Shuffle represents that latter approach, which to my ear is much more satisfying. The second recorded version is Tommy Jackson's original recording, from a 1958 Dot Records LP called Square Dance Tonight, reissued by Hallmark on CD in 2009. Note that Jackson's original version uses a IV chord rather than the VI minor chord near the end of the B part. Today, the mnor chord has become standard. The third MP3 is from the great Texas picker Eddie Shelton, from a now out of print 1976 Ridge Runner LP entitled Expedition. Shelton plays some astonishing variations, and throws in a nice up the neck melodic break. The last MP3 is a nice performance from BHO member Steve Cooley. Cooley played all the instruments in this overdub project; his first and last break are almost completely in Scruggs style, with a very freewheeling melodic break in the middle. His arrangement is an example of a melodic and harmonic variation to the tune that is now often heard, where the melody in the A part moves back to the VI minor chord before resolving, in the same way as in the B part. The first YouTube video is demonstration of Cherokee Shuffle by Keith, from the 2011 Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill, New York. The second is a jam with Andy Falco, Tony Watt, and Noam Pikelny. Pikelny is one of the hot young banjo pickers around today, and is a member of the progressive band The Punch Brothers. The second video features bluegrass fiddler Aubrey Hainey, with the bluegrass band David Peterson & 1946, from an appearance at the Station Inn in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2012. The banjo picker is David Talbot, who was one of the original members of The Grascals. The last video is a performance by the late Dave Hum, uploaded in January, 2012. Hum was a gifted street performer from Salisbury England, and a frequent BHO and YouTube contributor. His performances always included a lot of freewheeling but tasteful improvisations. He passed away in November, 2012. | ||
LESSON
12
(4/2/13) Reuben TEF Reuben's Train Lyrics PDF D Tuning Chord Chart PDF Open D Tuning Instructions* Reuben MP3 (Scruggs) Old Reuben MP3 (Jenkins) Old Ruben MP3 (Watson) Reuben's Train MP3 (Dillard) Reuben's Train MP3 (Weissberg) Reuben YouTube (Jarrell) Reuben YouTube (Gellert) Reuben YouTube (Baugus) Reuben's Train YouTube (Nickerson) Reuben's Blue Train YouTube (Nelson) Reuben YouTube (Hum) * Note that in the tuning instructions, it assumnes the 5th string is tuned to A. Just match the 5th string to the first string at the 4th fret, rather than the 7th. |
Notes: This week we are going to do our first tune in Open D (f#DF#AD), an open chord tuning which is sometimes called Graveyard Tuning, Low Drone Tuning, or Reuben Tuning, the last because the song Reuben is so closely associated with the tuning. At least one banjo scholar believes the tuning is deeply rooted in 18th Century African American "banjar" tradition. The tune/song- called alternately Reuben, Reuben's Train, or Old Ruben- can be traced at least to the late 19th Century, and it may be even older. We are going to learn Earl Scruggs' classic version from the Foggy Mountain Banjo album; in Open D, the 5th string can be tuned to either F# or A, here Scrugg's tunes it to F#. Scruggs almost certainly learned the tune from three finger pioneer Snuffy Jenkins, who can be heard playing on this 1940 recording of Byron Parker and His Mountaineers, reissued by Red Cab records on a 2010 CD called Best of Bluegrass, Vol. 3. The third MP3 file is a fine early performance by Doc Watson, on guitar and vocal, with his father-in-law, Gaither Carlton on clawhammer banjo, recorded in 1961 at their home in Deep Gap, North Carolina. This is from a Smithsonian Folkways CD entitled Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley, 1960-1962. Doc just passed away this last week. The fourth MP3 is from the Dillards, also done as a vocal, from their 1963 Elektra LP, Back Porch Bluegrass. Doug Dillard is in Open D tuning, but capoed on the third fret, so that the band is in the key of F, in order to accomodate the vocalist. Doug also just passed away last week. Also recorded in 1963 was a ground breaking banjo duet by Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman, from their influential Elektra LP New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass, later reissued by Warner Brothers as Dueling Banjos. Brickman went on to become a screenwriter for Woody Allen. There were a number of notable YouTube postings of Rueben. The first features the legenday old time fiddler and banjo picker Tommy Jarrell, clawhammering on a fretless banjo, from a video made at his home in North Carolina by Alan Lomax in 1983. The second is a performance by Dan Gellert on a fretless gourd banjo, at the 2011 Midwest Banjo Camp Faculty Concert. Dan's daughter, Rayna Gellert, is an accomplished and infuential old time fiddler. The third video is an April, 2011 jam by two other well-respected old time stalwarts, Kirk Sutphin and Riley Baugus. Sutphin is playing the fiddle here, but he is also a master of both clawhammer and old time three finger style banjo. Baugus is one of the leading proponents of traditional clawhammer style banjo, and he has played on the soundtrack of the movie Cold Mountain, and with country music legend Willie Nelson. Ross Nickerson features Rueben in a fine example of his on-line bluegrass instruction. For a truly original, progressive take on Old Rueben, you can't beat Glenn Nelson's jazzy Rueben's Blue Train, from the 2011 Banjo Camp North Faculty Concert. The last video, made in April 2012, is from the late British street musician David Hum, who was always good for a lively, creative take on an old standard. | |
Notes: This week we are going to use a technique that is sometimes called single string style, also Guitar style, or Reno style, the last named for Don Reno, the banjo picker who did the most to popularize it. However, the tune we are going to learn actually comes from Earl Scruggs, and it represents one of the rare times when Scruggs prominently uses the tehcnique. Basically, the thumb and index finger of the right hand alternately pick rapid melody notes in imitation of the down-up stroke of the flatpick in the hands of a guitarist or mandolinist. This original Pike County Breakdown is from the classic Flatt & Scruggs Mercury sessions, recorded in 1950. It has been reissued on a number of compilation albums, including the 2003 Mercury Nashville CD entitled Flatt & Scruggs, the Complete Mercury Recordings. I have selected three YouTube uploads which I think are particulary interesting. The first features Kenny Ingram, the banjo picker for the Larry Stephenson Band, in this July, 2011 performance at the Red, White and Bluegrass Festival in Morgantown, North Carolina. Bill Knopf does some wild melodic/chromatic picking in his YouTube demonstration video. Finally, my pal Jim Reed from Pike County, Kentucky does a fine turn mixing classic Scruggs and melodic style, in this just posted YouTube video. Kenny and Jim, by the way, are both regulars in the Banjo Hangout Chatroom. |
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| Notes: Earl Scruggs' setting for John Henry is the second 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 another great exercise in the choke and release string bend that was also in Reuben, only used with greater complexity here. 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 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. | ||
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LESSON
15 |
Notes: This week we are adding another bluegrass vocal standard to the lesson repertoire, which provides another exercise in doing medium to fast tempo open and closed position back-up. My Little Girl In Tennessee was recorded by Flatt & Scruggs in October, 1950, one of the legendary Mercury recordings, which helped define the bluegrass sound. This is available on the CD The Complete Mercury Recordings. The second recording is from Bluegrass Holiday, the classic album recorded by J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys for King Records in 1968, reissued on CD by Rebel Records. The members for this session included the great Red Allen on guitar, Doyle Lawson on mandolin, and Bobby Sloan on bass. I have also included an excellent version by Lou Reid and Terry Baucom and Carolina, from their album Carolina Moon. I have also linked to two YouTube videos. The first is a cover by the Osborne Brothers, uploaded form their 1968 Decca album, Yesterday, Today and the Osborne Brothers, now out of print. The second is a live performance by Sam Bush at Merlefest, from April, 2008. The second is a neat solo from Danny Barnes, recorded at a club in Oregon in September, 2008. The third is a live performance of the rising bluegrass star Sierra Hull, with her band Highway 111, from a January, 2011 concert at the Kennedy Center. The banjo player is Ron Block, apparently on loan from Allison Krauss. The last features mandolin wizard Chris Thile, accompanied on guitar by Michael Daves, from a September, 2011 concert. The duo has recorded this on a 2011 Nonesuch CD called Sleep With One Eye Open. Thile was a MacArthur Foundation Fellow (the famous "genius" grant) in 2012. | |
| LESSON
16 |
Notes: For this lesson we are going to begin studying the picking styles of some other bluegrass banjo pioneers and players, starting with Ralph Stanley and his 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. The late Dave Hum was a very innovative British three finger picker and street musician whose home made videos belie a very creative picker. He rendition of clinch Mountain Backstep includes some great innovative 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. | |
LESSON
17
(6/25/13) Little Maggie TEF Little Maggie Lyrics Little Maggie (Stanley Brothers, Rich-R-Tone) Little Maggie (Stanley Brothers, Mercury) Little Maggie MP3 (Ralph Stanley, Rebel) Little Maggie MP3 (Skaggs) Little Maggie MP3 (Cockerham) Little Maggie YouTube (Stanley) Little Maggie YouTube (Lilly) Little Maggie YouTube (Grayson & Whitter) Little Maggie YouTube (Borchelt) |
Notes: This week we are going to continue with 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. (I have added my own up the neck break to the tab; Stanley rarely plays lead up the neck.) 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 next video is an upload of the original 1928 recording by the early country duet of G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter. You can hear how their recording may have influenced Ralph and Carter. The last video is a tape I made in D Modal tuning awhile ago, to aswer a request for a D tuning tab from a Banjo Hangout member. D Modal (aDGAD) is basically the same idea as G "Sawmill" tuning (gDGCD), in that the string normally tuned to the 3rd degree of the scale is raised instead to the 4th degree; in this case, the 3rd string, normally F# in Open D tuning, is raised to G. I am playing my semi-fretless 1928 Vega Tubaphone. |
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LESSON
18
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Notes: We are going to continue this week with our study of the music and picking of Ralph Stanley, with his work on the classic murder ballad Pretty Polly. The modal ballad traces back to the British Isles, and is closely related to several other ballads, including The House Carpenter and The Gosport Tragedy. Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys' performance on Pretty Polly shows how in bluegrass and old time music a kind of ambiguity is introduced into renditions of the old modal ballads. While the medieval Dorian modal scale of this ballad includes a flatted third and a flatted seventh, the musicians play major chords for the rhythm, with both fallted notes played as major intervals. On the banjo, Stanley will sometimes play the flatted not, and sometimes the major note. The resulting dissonance is a central part of the sound. Stanley first recorded the song with his brother Carter in November, 1950, with Pee Wee Lambert on mandolin, and Les Woodie on fiddle. It was included on a Columbia Harmony label album called The Stanley Brothers in 1961, reissued on a 2006 Columbia/Legacy CD called The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers. Ralph, however, always felt that the recording was not "old timey" enough, and in 1971, five years after his brother passed away, he re-recorded the old ballad for Rebel Records, for a now out of print album entitled Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys Play Requests. It is this second recording that I have used as the basis for the lesson. This recording and others on the album are still available on a Rebel Records 4 CD boxed set entitled Ralph Stanley: 1971-1973. The first recording of Pretty Polly is probably that of a Kentucky two finger style old time banjo picker named B.F. Shelton, who recorded this and three other songs for Victor Records on July 29, 1927 at Bristol, Tennessee, by Ralph Peer during the famous Bristol Sessions where Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family also made their first recordings. Shelton, however, never made another recording, is little is known about him. That same year, Pretty Polly was also reecorded by another famous old time banjo picker, Moran Lee “Dock” Boggs, one of the first to record in a three finger style. Boggs used an unusual D modal tuning (f#DGAD); while he sang and picked the melody with the flatted third and seventh notes, the 5th string was tuned to the major third, thus guaranteeing that old timey dissonance would be prominent throughout the performance. One of the first old time recordings of Pretty Polly with guitar accompaniement was made in 1937, by Estile C. Ball, of Grayson County, Virginia, for the legendary Library of Congress field collector John Lomax. Ball would reprise this peformance for the collector's son, Alan Lomax, also for the Librarty of Congress, in August, 1959. It is the latter recording included here, but the original has been reissued as part of a 1997 Rounder Records collection called A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings. Pete Steele was another Kentucky old time two finger picker who heavily influenced Pete Seeger. He recorded the song for the Lomaxes in 1942, and also reprised his perfomance for a 1975 Folkways album entitled Pete Steele: Banjo Tunes and Songs. Grand Ol' Opry star Dave "Stringbean" Akeman recorded Pretty Polly in January, 1961, in frailing/clawhammer style for his first album for Starday Records, entitled Old Time Banjo Pickin' And Singin'. This has been reissued on CD by Gusto Records in 2008. In 1965, Virgina old time fiddler and banjo picker Hobart Smith recorded Pretty Polly as a fiddle instrumental for an influential album by Tradition Records called Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians. Smith in this recording ably demonstrates the use of a fiddle cross-tuning in order to add multiple drones to the ballad melody. In the hayday of the folk revival, folksinger Judy Collins recorded a heavily folk/rock influenced version of Pretty Polly for her 1968 Elektra album called Who Knows Where The Time Goes. It is a slick, modern rendition that greatly contrasts with the many old time versions presented here. I have included my own version of Pretty Polly, in D modal tuning (aDGAD), in a practice recording with my friends Brian Clancy and Tom Speth. We called our trio Wry Whiskey. There are quite a few versions of Pretty Polly uploaded to YouTube; I
have selected four to highlight. In 1968, the folk/rock band The Birds
included the song on their very successful Columbia LP entitled Sweetheart
of the Rodeo. This has been remastered and reissued by Sony Records.
The second video is a 2008 live performance by old-time banjo master and
scholar, David Holt.
The third features the bluegrass band The
Hillbilly Gypsies, performing at the Out Among the Stars Bluegrass
Festival in Benton, Pennsylavania, in July, 2008. Dave
Asti is on banjo. The last video is a live performance from September,
2012, at a fundraiser at The Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, featuring
Aoife O'Donovan doing lead vocal, Noam
Pikelny on banjo, Chris 'Critter' Eldridge on guitar, Paul Kowert
on bass, and Jacob Tilove on mandolin. |
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LESSON
19
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Notes: For this lesson we are going to learn Ralph Stanley's banjo work on the Stanley Brothers song How Mountain Girls Can Love. This will be our last lesson focusing on Dr. Ralph's simple but unique picking style. 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 eventually moved to the Unitarian Church in Billerica Center. I believe they are now looking for a new home. 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
20 (8/27/13) Dixie Breakdown TEF Dixie Breakdown Left Hand Patterns Dixie Breakdown MP3 (Don Reno & Red Smiley) Dixie Breakdown MP3 (The Lewis Family) Dixie Breakdown MP3 (Mark O'Connor) Dixie Breakdown YouTube (D.W. Reno) Dixie Breakdown YouTube (Dillard) Dixie Breakdown YouTube (Kropp) Dixie Breakdown YouTube (Gambetta) |
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 an upload of a 1971 unreleased audio recording of the Dillard Expedition, with Doug Dillard on the banjo, and Byron Berline on the fiddle. The third video is a 1989 television performance by the Boston based bluegrass band Northern Lights, featuring Mike Kropp on banjo. is a solo performance by Italian guitar impresario Beppe Gambetta, doing some awesome flatpicking. | |
LESSON
21 |
Notes: We
are going to continue 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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22 |
Notes: We
are going to do some more Don
Reno picking this week, with his single string style showcase called
Follow the Leader. This was recorded by Don and Red Smiley in April, 1961
and was released the following year on a nwo out of print King Records LP
entitled Banjo Special. This early cut has never been re-released.
The fiddler is the great Mack
Magaha. Reno plays the first break straight with roll patterns, then
after the fiddle takes a break, he stretches out on the second break with
his trademark single string style, obtaining linear melodic phrases by utilizing
the thumb and index finger like a flatpick, with the thumb taking the downstroke,
and the index finger taking the upstroke. I have separated this break out
as a separate exercise, as it will require a lot of extra practice to get
smoothly. Note that in this recording, when playing the roll pattern based
breaks, Reno plays an E minor chord, but in the back up, the band is playing
an E major chord. This was a common practice among old time bands and early
bluegrass bands; in fact, in the original Mercury recording of Foggy Mountain
Breakdown, the Foggy Mountain Boys play an E major behind Earl's E minor
chord. When he plays his single string runs, and when playing back-up, Reno
reverts to an E major. Follow the Leader is a tough tune to learn up to speed, so it is not surprise that there are not a lot of covers recorded by other banjo artists.Tony Trischka included the song on his now out of print third solo album for Rounder Records, called Banjoland, in a duet with the legendary Bill Keith. This cut features some of the best musicians in bluegrass music: Buck White and David Grisman are sharing the mandolin duty, Tony Rice is on guitar, the great Vassar Clements is on fiddle, and Todd Phillips is on bass. Butch Robbins, who was one of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys from 1977 to 1981, recorded the tune on his own record label, Hay Holler Records, in 1990, on a CD called Once Again From The Top - Volume 2, playing with his own group called simply The Bluegrass Band. Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan, carries the CD, but it appears to be currently out of print. There are a few YouTube uploads of Follow the Leader, I've included three that I felt were interesting. The first is a live performance by a Southern California group, Peter Feldmann & The Very Lonesome Boys, uploaded in January, 2007. The banjo picker is David West. The second is a live gig by a Japanese bluegrass band, the Lone Star Grass Pickers, uploaded in August, 2010. The last is a clever tour de force by Bela Fleck and Tony Trischka, playing together on one banjo at Bela Fleck's Banjo Summit concert at Sander's Theatre in Cambridge, October 10, 2013. |
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LESSON
23 |
Notes: For this week, we are going to learn the first true melodic style tune to be released on a commercial recording, Bill Keith's groundbreaking version of Devil's Dream. Iin his early twenties, Keith had worked out several old fiddle tunes using a flowing technique by which linear melodic lines are played going across strings, each succeeding note on a different string, when possible, ather than along a single string in the "guitar style" popularized by Don Reno. This allowed for clearer, more sustained melodic phrasing. In 1962, Keith won the banjo contest at the Philadelphia Folk Fesitval playing a duet of Devil's Dream and Sailor's Hornpipe in his new "fiddle style," accompanied by Jim Rooney. Prestige International would include the winning medley an a record of folk festival performances later that year, and in September, 1963, Prestige would release a record centered around Keith and Rooney, called Bluegrass: Livin' On the Mountain, which would also include the pair doing their Devil's Dream/Sailor's Hornpipe medley. But by the time that record was released, Keith had become a Bluegrass Boy, and Bill Monroe lost no time putting Keith's new style onto wax. In March, 1963, he brought Keith into the recording studio in Nashville, to record Devil's Dream, Sailor's Hornpipe, and Salt Creek. All became instant bluegrass instrumental classics, giving hard core bluegrass fans their frst exposure to the new "Keith style" of playing. Monroe played the mandolin on the recording, of course, and the great Kenny Baker played the fiddle. Monroe released Devil's Dream as a single on Decca records, but never got around to including it on an LP. In 2003, MCA Nashville finally rereleased the recording on a two CD collection called Bill Monroe: Anthology. Rooney would eventually shift to the business side of the music industry, and become a successful Nashville producer. Keith, of course, would become a banjo icon, and the godfather of the Scruggs/Keith tuning peg! This lesson actually includes two TEF files. The first is a fairly close transcription of what Keith and the other lead instrumentalists are playing on the March, 1963 Decca recording. One of the oddities of this recording, however, is the absense of the B minor chord that is well arpeggiated in the melody of the tune. Perhaps following the unspoken disdain for minor chords prevalent in early bluegrass, Monroe's band plays an E7 chord instead. I have included a second TEF file which reverts back to the B minor, as it is usually played, and for good measure I have added to Keith's basic break a melodic variation and a banjo harmony that I worked out back in the mid-seventies. It is this second file we will use for the lesson, though you might want to look at the first file for some of the back-up dropped out to make room for the harmony. Interestingly, Keith's recording of Monroe is not the first time that a melodic version of Devil's Dream was recorded by a record company. In March, 1962, six months before Keith won the banjo contest in Philadelphia, and one year before Monroe and Keith went into the Nashville studio, Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman included a quirky melodic style duet of Devil's Dream on a now out of print Elektra Records album entitled Folk Banjo Styles, which also included cuts by Art Rosenbaum and Tom Paley. It is a rough recording, but it may actually be the first example of melodic style on a commercial recording. Who influenced whom is a metter of conjecture. Along with the Keith and Weissberg recordings, I have included a number of other interesting MP3s. Going back 80 years, George Wade and His Cornhuskers, then a very popular Toronto area country band, recorded a lively Devil's Dream for RCA Victor Records in 1933. In the fashion of Canadian (and New England) country dance music, the chief accompanying instrument is the piano, not the guitar. This cut has been reissued by M.C. Productions on a compilation CD called Reeling With Jigs - Canadian Fiddle Music #2. In 1953, King Records recorded Fiddlin' Red Harron playing Devil's Dream, accompanied by Joe Maphis on guitar, for an out of print LP entitled Square Dances Without Calls. (This is not as strange a title as it sounds; I had to learn most of my early fiddle tunes from listening to my parents square dance records, straining to hear the fiddle over the voice of the caller.) The Herron cut has been reissued by CMH Records on a 2008 CD entitled Fiddler's Hall of Fame: 60 All-Time Fiddle Classics. Back to some banjo recordings: in 1978, Mason Williams with his band Sante Fe Recital included Devil's Dream on a now out of print Flying Fish Records LP entitled, appropriately, Fresh Fish. It is available for MP3 download from Amazon. The recording is a bit overproduced, but it is an interesting and energetic performance. The banjo picker is Steve Keith, who also dubbed in some of the fiddle work. The last MP3 is a fine recording by Alan Munde, who included the tune on his now out of print 1980 Ridge Runner LP entitled Festival Favorites, Volume 1. In 1993 Rounder Records rereleased the cut on an album entitled Festival Favorites Revisited. Roland White is playing mandolin, and Robert Bowlin is on fiddle. Among the many renditions of Devil's Dream uploaded
to YouTube, there are several I found to be of particular interest. The
first is an upload of an undated or referenced audio recording of Bill
Keith and Jim Rooney playing the Devil's Dream/Sailor's Hornpipe medley.
This is likely one of the Prestige recordings made at or shortly after
the 1962 Philly Folk Festival. The second video is an audio upload of
banjo picker Butch Robbins,
recorded during a banjo workshop at Carlton Haney's Camp Springs Festival
in Reidsville, North Carolina, in August, 1969. Robbins plays a minor
version of Devil's Dream that works suprisingly well. The picking starts
at 0:37. The next video is a concert recording of the late Jean
Carignan, thought by many to be the greatest Canadian fiddler to have
ever lived. As a young man, Carignan was a member of the Wade's Cornhuskers.
This video appears to be from the mid-seventies, when Carignan was about
60 years old. His version of Devil's Dream is full of trick fiddling technique,
including some very long pizzacato runs that I would not have thought
possible if I hadn't seen it. Back to Bluegrass- the next Devil's Dream
video is a live performance of a now defunct Northern California bluegrass
band called A Touch of Grass, playing at a club in Los Altos, in September
of 1982. Paul Siese is the banjo player; he now plays with the California
band Mountain
Laurel. Jump to June, 2007, for a live performance by the West Virginia
based band The
Hillbilly Gypsies, at the Smoked Country Jam, in Loganton, Pennsylvania.
The banjo player is Dave
Asti. The next video, uploaded in August, 2010, actually turns the
clock back over 150 years. Minstrel banjo interpreter Timothy
Twiss performs a version of Devil's Dream in the old minstrel stroke
style, the precursor to clawhammer style, from an arrangement he found
in a banjo method book published in 1858, just three years before the
start of the Civil War. He is playing on a fretless minstrel banjo built
by Canadian Jeff Menzies. The late Dave
Hum does a fine perfomance of Devil's Dream while busking, in a video
he uploaded in January, 2012. Dave often embellished his fiddle tune renditions
with interesting improvisations and interludes of the sort featured here.
The final video features Bill Keith jamming on Devil's Dream with young
fiddler Jonny Cody, at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill, new
York, in August, 2013. It was, as Bill notes in the video, fifty years
after he recorded the tune with Bill Monroe.
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LESSON
24 |
Notes: The lesson for this week is Bill Keith's finger-twisting melodic style rendition of the old Scottish fiddle tune Sailor's Hornpipe. Many today still associate the tune with the old Popeye cartoons, where it was generally used as the theme music for the opening credits. The tune dates to the late 18th Century, under its original title College Hornpipe, where it is found in a number of printed collections. It came to be called Sailor's Hornpipe, as it was often used to accompany the popular sailor's hornpipe dance. It was generally played in one of the fiddle's "flatted keys," either in Bb or F, in standard tuning. It was one of the first tunes that Bill Keith worked ou in melodic style in the early 60s, and was part of the two tune medley, along with Devil's Dream, that he played to win the banjo contest at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1962. He recorded the tune with Bill Monrow and the Bluegrass Boys in the same session as Devil's dream and Salt Creek, in March, 1963, but Monroe did not release it until June, 1965, when he included it on a now out of print album for Decca Records called Bluegrass Instrumentals. I have used this classic recording as the basis for this week's lesson, it is a great work out for mastering melodic basic melodic patterns. In another of those turns of banjo fate, New York banjoist Roger Sprung released a recording of Sailor's Hornpipe on his Folkways LP Progressive Bluegrass Vol. 3, six months before the release of Monroe's album, in January, 1965. While Sprung uses Keith style melodic phrasing in his rendition, he relies more on the staccato, Reno style of single string picking for meloldy lines more than Keith does. A natural musician, Sprung plays a nice, brief little harmony against the fiddle near the end of the recording. Sprung's album is available from Amazon in both Audio CD and MP3 Download format. Roger and I both camp on "Geezer Hill" at the Clifftop festival, where, though now in his 80s, he still plays the banjo like a madman! I've included two MP3s of modern non-bluegrass performances. The first is an elegant turn on the six-string banjo by finger style guitarist Harvey Reid, of York, Maine, released in 1996 on his album The Artistry of the 6-String Banjo. A Boston area folk music group known as The Jolly Rogues, specializing in historic colonial, seafaring and celtic music, included Sailor's Hornpipe on their 2010 CD, Hicks the Pirate. I have also included three historic fiddle recorrdings of Sailor's Hornpipe on fiddle, just to point to where it all comes from. The first is a 1909 cylander recording released by a small company called Albany Indestructable Records. The fiddler was Charles D'Almaine, who was the house violin soloist and concertmaster for the Victor Recording Company, who at the time distributed the Albany Indestructable recordings. The next two reocrdings were both made in 1923. John Baltzell was a southern Ohio fiddler born in 1860, who as a young man had played with minstrel pioneer Dan Emmett, the man who wrote Dixie. Like D'Almaine, Baltzell plays in a formal, melodically sooth style typical of the northeastern contradance style of fiddling. The flip side of his 78rpm for Banner Records was The Arkahsas Traveler. In contrast, the rendition by Jasper "Jep" Bisbee, recorded for Edison Records two months after Baltzell, and released with it's original title, is full of long slides, and melodic improvisations. If Sailor's Hornpipe already sounds very familiar, it is probably because the melody, as mentioned earlier, was used for many years by Paramount Pictures as background music for the opening credits of the Popeye the Sailor cartoons. Take a listen to a sound clip from a 1943 cartoon. I have listed four YouTube videos that I thought were noteworthy. The first is a great turn on the ukelele, uploaded in March, 2007 by Brian Heffernan. It should be noted that while it is called a hornpipe, all of the renditions listed so far, even the historic ones, are actually in faster 2/4 reel time, the tempo that the tune would be played for a standard contra dance. The video by the British group called the Banshee Ceilidh Band attempts the tune in true hornpipe style, in the slower 4/4 time suitable for the hornpipe dance. This is from a live performance at an inn in Chepstow, in southern Wales. The third video returns us to bluegrass, with a live performance by bluegrass stalwart Butch Robbins, with mandolinist Tom Ohmsen and guitarist Scott Fore, at a benefit in Roanoke, Virginia, in April, 2010. The last video features the late Dave Hum, a street musician from Salisbury, England. Dave, a BHO friend, uploaded this video in October, 2012, shortly before he lost his long battle with cancer. |
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LESSON
25 |
Notes: This week we are going to continue our review of the melodic style of Bill Keith, this time his arrangement to Tommy Jackson's tune Crazy Creek. This tune gets us further away from the traditional three or four chord bluegrass progression, forcing Keith into some very resourceful melodic figures. The recording comes from Keith first Rounder Records album, Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass, released in 1976. This cut also features Tony Rice on guitar, Kenny Kosek on fiddle, and David Grisman on mandolin. Tommy
Jackson (1926-1979) was a popular Nashville session fiddler who played
with many of the legends of country music, including Hank Williams Sr.,
Hank Garland, Kitty Wells, Porter Wagoner, Ray Price, and Webb Pierce.
He also released a large number of tunes on 78 and LP, mostly for the
square dance market. Crazy Creek is one of his few original compositions,
which he recorded for Dot Records in November, 1957, for an album called
Square
Dance Tonight, still available form Amazon in MP3 format. The
Dillards also recorded Crazy Creek, on their third album for Elektra
Records, an all instrumental album featuring fiddler Byron
Berline as a guest musician. While the 1965 album Pickin'
& Fiddlin' is out of print, the entire LP has been uploaded
to YouTube. Unfortunately, Doug Dillard does not take a break on this
cut. The next MP3 is a practice tape from my stint picking banjo in a
now defunct Boston area bluegrass band, Adam Dewey & Crazy Creek,
from an April, 1995 session. I have also included on MP3 from the Banjo
Hangout music archive, a fine version of Crazy Creek by my friend Jim
Reed, of Sidney Kentucky, uploaded in October, 2008. I have also listed
one YouTube video of note, a live performance by the Tony Rice Unit, most
likely from the early 90s, featuring Rice's brother Wyatt
Rice on lead guitar, Jimmy
Gaudreau on mandolin, and Rickie
Simpkins on fiddle. |
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LESSON
26
(2/4/14) Doin' My Time TEF Doin' My Time: Back Up Exercise 1 Doin' My Time: Back Up Exercise 2 Doin' My Time: Back Up Exercise 3 Doin' My Time: Back Up Exercise 4 Doin' My Time: Back Up Exercise 5 Doin' My Time: Back Up Exercise Fill-In Doin' My Time Lyrics Doin' My Time MP3 (Flatt & Scruggs) Doin' My Time MP3 (Skinner) Doin' My Time MP3 (Wiseman) Doin' My Time YouTube (The Grascals) Doin' My Time YouTube {Johnny Cash) Doin' My Time YouTube (Cash and Stuart) Doing My Time YouTube (New Grass Revival) |
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. I have pulled many of the classic back-up licks earl uses here and organized them into separate exercises, as well. 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. I've picked out four videos from YouTube I believe are of special merit. 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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LESSON
27 |
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. The song was originally recorded by an early country music duo, Fred and Gertrude Gossett, in 1930. It has been reissued by Trikont Records on a compilation CD called Flowers in the Wildwood: Women in Early Country Music, 1923-1939. It was made popular by the Monroe Brothers, Bill and Charlie, when they recorded it for Victor Records in August, 1937. Victor released the 78 rpm record in October of that year on their Bluebird label, with Let Us Be Lovers Again on the flip side. it has been reissued on a Soundmark CD called The Monroe Brothers Complete RCA Victor Bluebird Recordings, Vol. 3, available for MP3 download form Amazon. The duo would permanently split the following year, both professionally and personally, and Bill would go on to form The Bluegrass Boys. They would never reconcile. Bill would record the song again almost 30 years later for Decca Records, in December, 1966; it was released on his now out of print album Bluegrass Time. The banjo player is Lamar Grier, Richard Greene is on fiddle, Peter Rowan is on guitar, and James Monroe on bass. Ralph Stanley also released a version, on his 1972 Rebel LP, Live In Japan. The Norman & Nancy Blake recording is terrific audio quality, but Norman has come up with some different lyrics that are interesting. This is from their 2004 Dualtone CD The Morning Glory Ramblers. Charlie Parr, a traditional folk and blues musician from has recorded a nice version on his 2011 House of Mercy Recordings album Keep Your Hands On the Plow. His wife Emily is singing harmony. I have included two YouTube versions. The first is a live performance by Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys, from a December, 1981 concert in the Netherlands. Paul Silvius is on banjo. Paul quit playing banjo a few years later, and now installs cabinets somewhere in Connecticut. The 2007 Frank Wakefield Band performance was made on the back porch or Frank's house. Deane Lewis of Albany, New York is playing banjo. Both videos highlight the tendency of a lot of bluegrassers to convert the waltz time songs to 2/4 time. Some folks just can't bring themselves to play a waltz. |
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LESSON
28 |
Notes: This lesson we will tackle Foggy Mountain Special, Earl Scrugg's honky tonk blues tour de force, a great exercise in this 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. First is a video of Earl Scruggs himself, from the Flatt & Scruggs television show, taped in July, 1961. A DVD of the full show is available from the Country Music Hall of Fame. is available 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. Bela Fleck's performance is from a May, 2007 Columbia, Maryland banjo workshop, and also features Robbie McCoury of the Del McCoury Band. 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. 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. The last video is a nice clean busking performance by British banjo wizard Dave Hum, uploaded in October, 2010. |
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LESSON
29
(3/25/14) Pain In My Heart TEF Pain In My Heart Lyrics Back Up Exercise 8 Back Up Exercise 9 Pain In My Heart MP3 (Osborne) Pain In My Heart MP3 (L.P. Fiddlers) Pain In My Heart MP3 (Scruggs) Pain In My Heart YouTube(Osborne) Pain In My Heart YouTube(McCoury) Pain In My Heart YouTube(Crowe) |
Notes: We are going to begin studying some of Sonny Osborne's great picking; 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
30 (4/15/14) Big Spike Hammer TEF Big Spike Hammer Lyrics Big Spike Hammer MP3 (Osborne) Big Spike Hammer MP3 (Crowe) Big Spike Hammer YouTube (Osborne) Big Spike Hammer (YouTube CrabGrass) Big Spike Hammer YouTube (Rice & Baucom) Big Spike Hammer YouTube (Hull & Boxcars) Big Spike Hammer YouTube (IIIrd Time Out) |
Notes: This week we are adding another Osborne Brothers classic to the lesson list. Big Spike Hammer was written by Bobby Osborne and Pete Goble, and first recorded by the brothers for Columbia, in 1965. This was during the long period the Osborne's sought to mainstream their sound, so they included piano and drums in the session. Two decades later, in 1986, they recorded the number again for Sugar Hill records with straight bluegrass instrumentation, and it is this second version, available on a Sugar Hill compilation, The Osborne Brothers: Once More Vol. 1 And 2, that I used as the basis for this lesson. It features Sonny Osborne's smooth integration of his traditional rolls and jazzy single string work, and his flowing back up. The second MP3 is from The Bluegrass Album Band, a group of bluegrass super-pickers assembled by Rounder Records in the early 80s, including Tony Rice on guitar, J.D. Crowe on banjo, Doyle Lawson on mandolin, Bobby Hicks on fiddle, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and Todd Philips on bass. This cut comes from Rounder 1983 release The Bluegrass Album, Vol. 3 – California Connection. There were quite a few YouTube postings of Big Spike Hammer; I have selected five that I thought were noteworthy. There was no Osborne Brothers video, but there was a video of Bobby Osborne and the Rocky Top X-Press, peforming at the High Mountain Hay Fever Blue Grass Festival in Westcliffe, Colorado, in July, 2007. Sonny retired from music in 2005, the banjo picker here is Dana Cupp. The second video is a bluegrass band from Cape Cod called CrabGrass, from a New Year's Eve concert in Chatham, Massachusetts, in 2006. Les Beavan is on banjo. The third video features bluegrass stars Tony Rice on guitar, and Terry Baucom on banjo, performing as guests with the bluegrass band Mountain Heart, at the Red, White and Bluegrass Festival in Morgantown, North Carolina, in July, 2010. Young bluegrass mandolinist Sierra Hull appears in this next video with The Boxcars, the band led by bluegrass picker Ron Stewart. from a live performance at the Cumberland Caverns, in August, 2010. Block shares the banjo duties here with Ron Block, who is a member of Allison Krause's band Union Station. The last video is a nice production from Russell Moore & IIIrd Time Out, from December, 2012. This was released to promote their new CD, Timeless Hits from the Past Bluegrassed, released by Cracker Barrell Music. Yes, it is THAT Cracker Barrell. The banjo picker is Steve Dilling. |
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LESSON
31 |
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
32 |
Notes: This week we are going to begin to focus on 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: 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! |
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Notes: The week we are going to look closely at the way J.D. Crowe approaches slower ballads and two steps, with several breaks that he played on the first intrumental album from guitar legend Tony Rice, called Tony Rice, Guitar, released by Rebel records in 1973. Rice was playing with the Crowe's Kentucky Mountain Boys at the time. Crowe's work on the Faded Love cut is one of the few lead breaks that he has ever recorded in his signature triplett based slower rhythm back-up style. Crowe is playing in the key of C in standard tuning, capoed on the second fret (as is Rice on guitar). Faded Love, one of the great classic country songs, first recorded by rhe legendary Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys for Brunswick Records in 1947. Wills took an old Texas fiddle tune called Forsaken Lover and slowed it down to make a two-step suitable for cheek-to-cheek dancing. Brunswick never released this or any of the other recordings from the session. (A pre-recorded radio performance of the instrumental version was released by Kaleidoscope Records in 1984, on the album Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 2.) In 1950, Wills added lyrics and rerecorded the number for MGM Records, and had a number one hit. This recording has been reissued many times on various compilation albums, including The Very Best of Bob Wills, released on CD by Goldenlane Records in 2008. It includes fiddler Johnny Gimble, Eldon Shamblin on guitar, vocalist Rusty McDonald, and Billy Bowman on steel guitar. I couldn't find a video of Bob Wills performing the song with his band, but after his death in 1975, many of his former band members continued under the name Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. There is a fine live performance of this alumnus group from September, 2010, featuring vocalist Leon Rausch, Sleepy Johnson and Jesse Ashlock on fiddle, Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, and Al Stricklin on piano. It is not surprising that Faded Love has long been a staple in the repertoire of the Western Swing revival band Asleep at the Wheel; there are a number of live AATW performances on YouTube, this video is from a May, 2009 concert in Arkansas. I have included two noteworthy Faded Love YouTube videos in bluegrass style. The first is a performance of legendary fiddler Chubby Wise, backed up by Skip Johns and the Travelers, at a February, 1990 concert at Florida Gateway College. The second is a live September, 2010 concert by the James King Band, featuring Tony Mabe on banjo. |
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*****
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