JACOB BERNARD
| 1. Cripple Creek |
28. Bugle Call Rag 29. Rueben 30. Home Sweet Home 31. Shuckin' the Corn 32. Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss- C Tuning 33. Jolene 34. My Little Girl in Tennessee 35. Sally Goodin 36. Greensleeves 37. Grandfather's Clock 38. Little Birdie 39. Big Spike Hammer 40. What Will Become of Me 41. Bury Me Beneath the Willow 42. I'll Fly Away 43. Eighth of January in G 44. Eighth of January in D 45. Jambalaya 46. Jesse James Revisited 47. Theme Time 48. Farewell Blues 49. Wagon Wheel 50. Man of Constant Sorrow 51. Earl's Breakdown 52. O Come, O Come Emmanuel 53. Bringing Mary Home 54. Waltz Across Texas |
G
Tuning Instructions TEF Back Up
Exercise 01 TEF from Lesson 6 |
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 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. | |
| LESSON 2 Will
the Circle Be Unbroken Lyrics |
Notes: In this lesson we are going to finish working on Cripple Creek, from Lesson 1, tackling the second part of the tune. We are also going to work on basic rhythm playing, using simple open position "pinch" and box roll patterns, in order to practice changing chords and playing along with singing. Four TEF files are provided for practice purposes, the fiddle lead stands in for the singing. The banjo rhythm part goes through the first time with just a basic pinch, and then adds the box roll the second time through. In the beginning, though, just play the pinch throughout, and add the box roll later, once you are comfortable changing the chords. The lyrics for each song are also provided in a separate file. All of these songs are old bluegrass standards that we will use later to further develop lead and back-up technique. | |
| Notes: This week we are going to learn a banjo break for the popular gospel song Will the Circle Be Unbroken, written by A.P. Carter of the legendary Carter Family, one of the first big country music groups. This break uses the same alternate thumb pattern, or "box roll," that we learned with Cripple Creek. There are hundreds of YouTube videos of this song; I've linked to a few here. The first is the original 1927 Carter Family recording on Victor Records. The song became a popular bluegrass standard after the folk/rock group The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released in 1972 the influential first album of their album series entitled Will the Circle Be Unbroken, which featured a large number of bluegrass and country guest artists, including Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, and Earl Scruggs. This album brought helped spread bluegrass and traditional country music to a much larger urban audience. The song was recorded again for the Dirt Band's second album of the series, made in 1989; the YouTube video is from that session. Scruggs takes the first half of a split break with his son Randy, which starts at 1:36. The last video is a bluegrass jam session from the 2008 Galax Fiddlers Convention, featuring the incredible Sammy Shelor on banjo. Sammy takes his first break at 0:40. | ||
| Notes: We are going to start working on the forward roll this week, using as an example the old outlaw ballad Jesse James. There were some interesting performances on YouTube, including an upload of a cut from the Country Gentleman's first album, recorded in 1959, called Country Songs Old & New, which has been reissued by Smithsonian Folkways. The banjo picker is the great Eddie Adcock. Another fine bluegrass version is from Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, from a live concert in Berkeley, Califormia, in January, 2009. The banjo picker is Aaron McDaris. The third video features a banjo picker named Andy Lowe, playing in the banjo contest at the Galax Fiddlers Convention in 2009. Lowe won third place with this rendition of Jesse James. The last video is from a live concert in Dublin, in 2007, by Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band. The opening banjo solo is not the song Jesse James, which starts up as soon as the initial picking is done; the banjo break for the song starts at 4:25. The banjo picker is Greg Listz, who plays in the Boston based band Crooked Still. Listz plays a unique four-finger style of picking. | ||
LESSON 5 |
Notes: This week we are going to use the time to continue to work on the forward roll, using a tune that you have already started. This is the Eddie Collins' arrangement from the October, 2010 issue of the Banjo newsletter, converted to Tabledit, with guitar, bass, and fiddle tracks added, along with a rhythm/back up section. I found two nice bluegrass style versions of the tune. The first is by bluegrass pioneer Mac Wiseman, which can be found on the CD Maple On The Hill: Songs Requested By Fans, Vol. 1. The other is by bluegrass banjo superpicker Tom Adams, from his CD Right Hand Man. The next MP3 is may favorite performance, by the legendary Delta country blues singer "Mississippi" John Hurt, from his live album The Best of Mississippi John Hurt. The last MP3 is the first recording of the song, by the Pine Ridge Boys, Marvin Taylor and Doug Spivey, issued by RCA's Bluebird Records in 1939. One year later, the song was recorded again, with more commercial success, by country singer Jimmy Davis, who had purchased the rights and later claimed writing credits. A few years later, Davis later was elected Governor of Louisiana; the YouTube video is a performance from one of his campaign films. The next YouTube performance is by flatpicking great Norman Blake, and is from the soundtrack CD for the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. The last is a video of some nice banjopicking by five string teacher Ross Nickerson. | |
| Notes: Banks of the Ohio is a classic old time murder ballad, with a break which gives another opportunity to learn the use of the forward roll to render melody. This will feature a new forward roll pattern, with the "extra" two notes at the end, instead of the beginning of the roll. In the back up, we will be using the first closed chord position for the first time. The first example is a Youtube video of Doc Watson and Bill Monroe singing Banks of the Ohio in duet. The Lilly Brothers & Don Stover were a bluegrass act that performed for years at the old Hillbilly Ranch in Boston's Combat Zone; this version of Banks is from a reissue CD The Lilly Brothers & Don Stover: Bluegrass at the Roots, 1961. The third version is features Ear Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs, and Doc Watson (again), from their concert CD Three Pickers. | ||
LESSON 7 |
Notes: This week we are going to look at a new version of You Are My Sunshine, that shows how the melody can be imbedded inside the forward roll, in contrast to having the forward roll just fill up space between the melody notes. It also provides an opportunity to practice that closed chord position up and down the neck for the back-up rhythm, first introduced last lesson. | |
LESSON 8 |
Notes: In this lesson, we are going to revisit Will the Circle Be Unbroken, learning a break that makes better use of the forward roll to render the melody. The back up portion of the tab also explores using simple two measure forward rolls for back up. We will also be looking at some more complicated right hand rhythmic patterns to use with closed chords. | |
LESSON
9 |
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. | |
LESSON
10 |
Notes: A last minute change to the lesson plan, we are going to learn the showpiece tune Dueling Banjos, the theme from the movie Deliverance, as played by Eric Weissberg, from the performance from the movie soundtrack. I have made a very few changes to the Weissberg's arrangement, using some more conventional Scruggs roll patterns in place of a few of his fairly idiosyncratic right hand patterns, which are not as universally applicable. The first MP3 is the recording from the soundtrack, with Steve Mandel doing the guitar part. This cut is still available on a reussie of the Warner Brothers album Dueling Banjos, which was first released as an LP shortly after the movie's release in 1972. That album was actually a reissue of an Elektra LP that Weissberg made with Marshall Brickman in 1963, entitled New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass, with the later Dueling Banjos cut added to it. The second MP3 is the recording of the tune by the original composer, Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, in 1955. Then called Feuding Banjos, Smith played the tenor banjo, while the five string part was done by Don Reno. This recording is available on a number of compilations, including a CMH CD also called Dueling Banjos. The first YouTube version is the actual clip from the movie Deliverance, which featured the tune as part of the story line. Note that neither of the actors are actually playing the instrument as heard in the soundtrack! The second MP3 is a reprise of the original performance by Eric Weissberg with folk singer/guitarist Tom Paxton, from a May, 2009 concert. The last video is a spectacularly entertaining rendition by the Kruger Brothers, Jens and Ewe, from a performance at the Doc Watson Music Fest in Sugar Grove, North Carolina, in 2001. | |
LESSON
11 |
Notes: This week we are going to go up the neck, with Earl Scrugg's classic rendition of Fireball Mail, from the Flatt & Scruggs Foggy Mountain Banjo album. 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. | |
LESSON
12 |
Note: Old Joe Clark is another old-time fiddle tune that is also a bluegrass standard. This arrangement is in open G, but with the capo on the second fret, in order to be in the normal fiddle key of A. This uses the MIMT and ITIT patterns known as the Dillard Roll, becuase it was introduced and popularized among bluegrass pickers by banjo legend Doug Dillard. This also has a little melodic phrasing at the end, as an alternative to the standard roll-based licks. The first recorded version is from bluegrass banjo master Tom Adams, from his CD Right Hand Man, available for download from Amazon MP3. The second version is one of the old-timey three-finger/clawhammer duets between myself and Ed Britt, from Wakefield, Massachusetts. The third version is one posted by Banjo Hangout member Jim Reed. Jim's playing is filled with little surprises. Note how instead of getting the first note of the third measure (measure 5 in the tab) on the open string, the way virtually everyone else does, he slides from 2 to 4 on the third string. Simple, but I didn't think of it. The last is a great clawhammer rendition from BHO member Arnie Naiman, from Ontario. It is from his CD Five Strings Attached Vol. 2, available from CD Baby. This album is the second recorded in collaboration with Chris Coole, another first rate Canadian clawhammer player. Volume 1 is one of the few CDs I've bought in the last 10 years. I've also included links to several YouTube postings. The first is one of the first recordings of Old Joe Clark, made by the Fiddlin' Powers & Family for the Victor label in 1924. The second video features picker and comedian Dave "Stringbean" Akerman on the TV show Hee Haw, with Grandpa Jones, Roy Clark and Bobby Thompson all picking their banjos. |
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LESSON
13 |
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. 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: 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 rhythm pattern. I have included an exercise for the new back-up rhythm pattern, which uses the Wreck of the Old 97 chord progression. Lester and Ear'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. The Johnny Cash version is from a 1957 Sun record, with Luther Perkins on lead guitar. Wrapping it up is bluegrass legend Mac Wiseman, also posted on YouTube.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. | ||
| 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
16 |
Notes: Bill Cheatham (or sometimes "Cheatum," or "Cheatem") is a tradiitonal southern fiddle tune that we are going to use to introduce the melodic style of bluegrass banjo picking. Pioneered by Bill Keith, Bobby Thompson, and Carroll Best, melodic style runs differ from Scruggs style rolls in that every note is part of a linear scale pattern, rather than an arpeggio with melody notes imbedded. In melodic style, as much as possible, the successive melody are played across strings, as opposed to the single string "guitar style" popularized by Don Reno, which imitates the plectrum, or flat pick of a guitar , mandolin, or tenor banjo. The melodic exercise shows how the concept works. Melodic style is often employed in the playing of fiddle tunes, as it made it much easier for bluegrass pickers to render a recognizable fiddle tune melody. Bill Cheatham is a fiddle tune standard, which was brought into the bluegrass repertoire by the great Doc Watson, the master of the flat-picked lead guitar. Watson reprised his widely influential arrangement on a 1967 Columbia album with Flatt & Scruggs called Strictly Instrumental, which has been reissued by County Records. Note that Earl does not attempt a break, but just noodles around in the background. The second MP3 features three of the most prominent melodic palyers in bluegrass, Tony Trischka, Bill Keith, and Bela Fleck, from a 1980 Rounder album entitled Fiddle Tunes for Banjo. The first YouTube video is again Doc Watson, playing with his son Merle, also an accomplished guitarist. Merle was killed in a farming accident in 1985. The second video features British melodic style wizard Dave Hum, who appears to be playing street music! The Third YouTube posting is a 1949 recording by Hank Williams Sr., with his band The Drifting Cowboys, featuring the great Jerry Rivers on fiddle. This recording was not released until 1962, nine years after the singer's death. |
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| Notes: This week we are going to learn how to pic The Ballad of Jed Clampett, the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies, the popular television comedy show that ran for nine seasons, from 1962 to 1971. Earl Scruggs' sparkling banjo introduction at the beginning of the show was much of the American publics' first exposure to bluegrass banjo, five years before the movie Bonnie & Clyde also featured Scruggs picking Foggy Mountain Breakdown, and ten years before the movie Deliverance brought Dueling Banjos to prominence. Lester and Earl also appeared on the show in about four episodes. This is still one of the most requested banjo tunes that you will get from a non-bluegrass listener. Scruggs' banjo break includes practice in making use of the full D chord position, and using a lead backward roll for several measures. The tab setting also provides an opportunity to learn a new back up lick, using the G closed chord position, upon which we will build a whole assortment of other back up licks. I have included only one YouTube video, a rap version by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, that is pretty wild. It appears to have been from a live radio broadcast about five years ago. | ||
LESSON 18 Little
Liza Jane TEF (Rhythm Only) |
Notes: Soldier's Joy is one of the classic American fiddle tunes, played in almost every region of the country. We will be learning it in the key of C, in C tuning, the same tuning and left hand positions that were used for Wildwood Flower. This again demonstrates the similarity of C tuning left hand positions with left hand up the neck patterns in G tuning. The tune is actually played on the fiddle in the key of D, so to play along with a fiddler, the banjo will have to be capoed at the 2nd fret. 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 nice. | |
LESSON 19 TOP |
Notes: This week we are going to finish looking at the Up the neck break to Soldier's Joy, from the previous lesson, and also learn a more advanced open position break for Jesse James, the song we learned back in Lesson 4. We will also use Jesse James as a chance to practice the closed position back uip and fill in licks we have learned in earlier lessons. The YouTube video was just recently posted by friend Jim Reed. Jim is a coal mine electrician from Sidney, Kentucky, who plays a very original style of bluegrass banjo. | |
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. The last video was made in was made in 1998, when I played with a band called Wry Whiskey. Richie Chaisson is on resophonic guitar, Brian Clancey is on guitar, and Tom Speth is on bass. Note that in the revised version of the Tabledit File, a couple of licks have been changed to make them a little easier to play, without detracting from the overall sound. The measures that have been altered have the notation "REVISED MEASURE" under the tab. |
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| Notes: Time to get into the Christmas spirit with Earl Scruggs, learning his signature version of the classic Jingle Bells, from a music video with the Bluegrass All Stars, including Randy Scruggs, Sam Bush and Ricky Skaggs. Earl is playingcloser to his old-timey three finger style roots in this performance, with a couple of very nice right hand tricks to get the recognizable melody. The second video is a from performance at Nashville's Station Inn, one of the country's permier bleugrass venues, by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, featuring Alan O'Bryant on banjo. You usually hear this in bluegrass music done as an instrumental, but the last YouTube example features the singing of old-time bluegrass stalwart Wilma Lee Cooper, from a Gusto Record called A Traditional Bluegrass Country Christmas. | ||
LESSON 22 |
Notes: This week we are going to look at chord melody playing for the first time, with the old hymn Amazing Grace. Written by an English clergyman named John Newton in 1779, it is probably the most widely sung hymn of all time. The tab here provides three versions. The first uses basic Scruggs roll patterns, the second use full and partial chords in a fairly simple and straightforward uise of the technique, and the third uses a right hand triplet pattern that is often employed in bluegrass banjo for slow tunes. My favorite version of Amazing Grace comes from Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, with Ralph "lining out" the verses a cappella (no accompaniment), in the custom of the old Primitive Baptist Church, where Ralph grew up in the mountains of McClure, Virginia. This is from a Rebel record recorded in 1977, Clinch Mountain Gospel, with the late Keith Whitley singing lead, rereleased as a CD in 2001. There are a number of fine banjo versions posted on the Banjo Hangout. James Campbell (aka unity5) of Dewy Rose, Georgia, has a very lushly orchestrated version with piano and other accompaniment. Nestor Dudych (aka winnipegbanjoman) of Winnepeg, Manitoba, has a very sweet version with some nice compound chord formations. Johnny Fenlayson (aka banjovi1953) of West Columbia, South Carolina, plays a nice arrangement with lots of triplet pattern, and uses his Scruggs tuners as well! He is backed by his bandm Reflections of Bluegrass. Manuel Stocks (aka violanjo) has posted a fine violin/banjo duet which modulates through several keys. Randy Scruggs, Earl's very talented son, won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental in 1989, for this finger style solo guitar rendition of Amazing Grace, which I found on YouTube. This is from the album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two, which like the original 1972 album, featured the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in performance with a number of country and bluegrass guest artists. The second YouTube video is a brief but very elegant rendition on solo mandolin by Ricky Skaggs. The third is a fairly sophisticated chord melody performance, given as a lesson, by a young banjo picker named Ben Clark. Clark is playing a five string banjo with a tunneled fifth string; the fifth string tuner is in the peghead, but runs up a tube inside the neck, emerging at the fifth fret. | |
LESSON 23 |
Notes: Angeline the Baker is an old Appalachian fiddle tune that morphed from an anti-bellum Stephen Foster song called Angelina Baker. It is one of a small number of fiddle tunes that is still widely played by both bleugrass and old-time musicians. This arrangement is in C tuning, with the capo on the second fret, in order to be in the key of D, the key is is almost always played on the fiddle. The tab keeps the back-up super simple, so that we can practice improvising with both the right and left hands. There are at least a couple of dozen MP3s of Angeline in the Banjo hangout music archive. One of my favorite versions is by BHO member Royce Burt (aka royce), of Plant City, Florida. I also like the way my BHO friend Jim Reed (aka jimh269b), of Sidney Kentucky, picks the tune, featured in a three banjo jam session with Don Couchie and me at the Clifftop, West Virginia festival in 2010. I have included two clawhammer versions; a nice simple and clean rendition by Dylan Macnab (aka dilon42) of Eugene, Oregon, and a deep throaty version by clawhammer wizard John Balch (aka jbalch) of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on a reproduction of an 1840s minstrel style banjo built by George Wunderlich. There are also pages of YouTube postings, including a few notable ones by some well known bluegrass performers. I have included two from the Nashville Bluegrass Band, with the great Stuart Duncan on fiddle, and Alan O'Bryant on banjo. The first is from an appearance at Nashville's a Station Inn in December, 2009, the second appears to be from back in the 70s, judging from the age and hair styles of the musicians in their younger days. The Lonesome River Band, featuring Mike Hartgrove on fiddle and Sammy Shelor on banjo, play a fine version at the 2009 Back Forty Bluegrass Festival in Curryville, Missouri. Vivian Williams is a very well respected Seattle, Washington area fiddler who is accompanied on Angeline in this 1988 performance by Harley Bray, who in the 60s played in an influential bluegrass group The Bray Brothers. Blaine Sprouse is a legenday country and bluegrass fiddler who fiddled for Jimmy Martin and Bill Monroe. Here he is backed by Chris Sharp on banjo. Crooked Still is a popular string band that started out in the Boston area over a decade ago; their banjo player, Greg Liszt, plays a unique four finger style of picking. This performance is from the Telluride festival in June, 2009. The last video is a banjo duet, with my pal Ed Britt playing clawhammer style, from one of our street music expeditions to Harvard Square in August, 2011. | |
LESSON 24 Pike
County Breakdown TEF |
Notes: This
week we are going to learn the two tunes that are going to be featured
in the upcoming Joe
Val Kids Academy that is part of the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival
this weekend. Molly
and Tenbrooks is one of the recordings of Bill
Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, made in 1947 for Columbia Records,
just a few months before Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt left to form the
Foggy Mountain Boys. The first YouTube video is a cover done by the Stanley
Brothers in 1948 on the Rich-R-Tone label, right after the Monroe version
was released. The great Pee Wee Lambert is singing lead, and Ralph is
still picking with just two fingers. This and all the other early Stanley
Brothers Rich-R-Tone recordings are available on a Rounder CD called,
appropriately, Earliest
Recordings: The Complete Rich-R-Tone 78s (1947-1952). The Osborne
Brothers upload is from a now out of print 1968 Decca LP entitled Yesterday,
Today & The Osborne Brothers. The video of J.D. Crowe and
the New South is from an August, 2009 live performance in Mt. Airy, North
Carolina. |
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LESSON 25 |
Notes: In honor of Sadie Hawkins Day, we are going to learn Red Wing, a song almost always played as an instrumental by bluegrass musicians. Red Wing was originally a popular song, the tail of an Indian girl who loses her lover to war, written in 1907 by ragtime composer Kerry Mills. At the time in late Victorian America, all things Native American were the height of fashion, due to the enormous success of the recently published novel Hiawatha, in 1902. It is rarely performed as a vocal today. Also included in this week's lessons is a new closed position back-up lick, incorporating some Reno style single string work. The first MP3 is a recording by the Stanley Brothers, from an out of print 1963 Starday/King LP album called Banjo in the Hills. This was part of a medley with When You and I Were Young, Maggie, but I have edited it down. The second MP3 is a recording by Raymond Fairchild, of Maggie Valley, North Carolina. This is from an out of print 1976 Rural Rhythm LP album called Raymond Fairchild, King of the 5-String Banjo. The recording by Eddie Adcock and his wife Martha is from a 2010 Pinecastle CD called TwoGrass, and represents their first effort to perform as strictly a duo. I have included an MP3 by clawhammer maestro Reed Martin, from his groundbreaking 1998 instrumental CD called Old Time Banjo. The recording by East Tennessee fiddler Charlie Acuff, second cousin to legendary country singer Roy Acuff, doesn't feature the banjo, but Uncle Charlie does sing the song, so you can hear how it goes. This is from an out of print 2000 Tennessee Folklore Society CD called Better Times a Comin'. The album is available in cassette. The duet recording of Norman Blake on guitar and Red Rector on mandolin doesn't feature a banjo either, but it is a sweet recording just the same. This is from an out of print 1976 County LP called Norman Blake and Red Rector. I have included two MP3 recordings which I posted to my Banjo Hangout Homepage. The first was made on a radio show back around 1995, when I played in a bluegrass band called Adam Dewey and Crazy Creek; we played the tune modulating to three or four keys. The second is from a jam session I had at the Clifftop, West Virginia festival in 2010, with my BHO friends Don Couchie and Jim Reed. I have also included from YouTube, the western swing group Asleep at the Wheel. This is originally from a 1993 Capitol Records CD called A Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills, and featured former Texas Playboy Johnny Gimble on fiddle, with both Chet Atkins and Marty Stuart playing lead guitar. The second video is a scene from the 1961 20th Century Fox movie The Comancheros, in which John Wayne and Lee Marvin sing the song together in a barroom before getting into a brawl. Of course, the move is set in Texas about sixty years before the song was written, but who's quibbling about minor plot holes. | |
LESSON
26 |
Notes: This week we are going to learn to pick the theme song from the 1977 Universal Studios movie Smokey and the Bandit, starring Burt Reynolds (as "The Bandit"), Sally Field, Jackie Gleason (as Sheriff Buford T. Justice) and Jerry Reed (as Cledus "Snowman" Snow). Reed, wrote and performed East Bound and Down, the movie's theme. Before his successful career as a country singer and actor, Reed was for years a highly respected Nashville session guitarist, second only to his close friend Chet Atkins in stature. Reed recuited the legenday Nashville session play Bobby Thompson to play on the movie theme and soundtrack. Unfortunately, there is no real banjo lead on the recording; the banjo mostly rolls in the background, and is generally not audible enough to deconstruct what Thompson is playing. As a result, I have put together a banjo arrangement myself, using some of Thompson's signature phrasing where it occasionally comes out front in the recording. Reed's soundtrack recording can be found on a number of albums, including The Essential Jerry Reed, an RCA record that came out in 1995. I found one good bluegrass recording, from a 2009 Stonewall Record CD by the McCormick Brothers, called Somewhere in Time, with the great Haskell McCormick on banjo. There were two interesting YouTube videos. The first is a video of a studio session by Jim Mills, who for years played banjo for Ricky Skiaggs. The second is live performance by a bluegrass band from Ontario, Canada called Winterline. The banjo player is Ron James. I also uploaded a video of me picking this week's arrangement. "What we are dealin' with here is a complete lack of respect for
the law." - Sheriff Buford T. Justice |
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LESSON
27 |
Notes: If you made a lost of the ten most played bluegrass jam instrumentals, this week's tune, Salt Creek, would definitely be on it. Monroe basically took the tradiitonal fiddle tune Salt River, and changed the name so that he could copyright it. This version comes from the original 1963 Monroe performance by Bill Keith, when he was one of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. Ironically, Keith's picking on Salt Creek includes non of his signature melodic style, the linear runs are gotten instead with Reno style single string licks. The tune was issued on a single, but like Devil's Dream and Sailor's Hornpipe, two of Keith's other signature tunes, Monroe never released it on an LP. It eventually became available as part of a 1991 Bear Family four CD boxed set, called Bill Monroe, Bluegrass 1959-1969. I could not find the full recording on line, but most of the Keith banjo break has been sampled and posted, and I downloaded that. Keith recorded the song again 16 years later as a trio on a 1980 Rounder LP woth Tony Trishka and Bela Fleck, called Fiddle Tunes for Banjo. I have also included a performance by West Virginia old time fiddler Wilson Douglas, from a 2005 Rounder CD entitled The Right Hand Fork of Rush's Creek: Old Time Fiddling by Wilson Douglas, so you can hear the original, or at least one well-known version of it. There are a whole bunch of fine MP3 recoprdings uploaded in the Banjo Hangout archives; I have selected two, a fine full band performance by Chris Cairns (fireheart), and a really nice duet by John Kuhn (The KIDD), and Lee Chapman (dlchap), both from West Virginia. There are also several pages of YouTube videos; I have included four. The first is an upload of a cut from a classic 1989 Rounder album, Blake & Rice 2; featuring three bluegrass guitar giants, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, and Doc Watson. Jens Kruger plays a mean Salt Creek with guitarist David Grier and other faculty at the Kaufman Acoustic Camp in June, 2009. Ned Luberecki and Jeff Scroggins swap breaks during a Spring, 2009 banjo workshop in Nashville. And yes, the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys have also posted a video, with banjo player Jonny Mizzone demosntrating that he can indeed play it in his sleep. They have included it on a self-produced CD called Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, America's Music. | |
LESSON
28 |
Notes: This week's tune is Bugle Call Rag, based upon the picking of Earl Scruggs. This tune introduces harmonics, and also provides a good workout for Scruggs' up the neck left hand patterns. The first example is from the Foggy Mountain Boys' Foggy Mountain Banjo album. The second is from three-finger pioneer Oren Jenkins, brother to the famous Dewitt "Snuffy" Jenkins. It is from the classic Folkways album, American Banjo, Three Finger and Scruggs Style, recorded by Mike Seeger in 1957. It shows again how Scruggs was influenced by earlier pickers. The third example features guitar gian Tony Rice, from his California Autumn album, recorded for Rebel Records in 1994. The banjo player is the great Ben Eldridge, longtime banjo player for the pioneering progressive bluegrass band The Seldom Scene. Bugle Call Rag was a actually a jazz standard popularized by the legendary swing band leader Benny Goodman. The first YouTube video is from a 1936 short film featuring Goodman and his orchestra. The second is an upload of a 78 rpm record made in Paris in 1937 of the Dicky Wells Orchestra, featuring the French gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Renhardt's guitar solo starts at 2:04. The recording by steel guitar legend Roy Smeck dates from the same year. The fourth video is a snippet from a 1958 television performance by country finger style guitarist Merle Travis. There were a number of bluegrass style videos of Bugle Call Rag posted on YouTube; I have selected four that were particularly noteworthy. The first is from a 1990 concert by Rounder Records' Bluegrass All Stars- J.D. Crowe, Tony Rice, Alison Krauss, David Grisman, and Mark Schatz. Crowe, of course, is doing the banjo picking. The second is a jam session at the Merlefest 2001 music festival with Bela Fleck and guitarist Bryan Sutton, featuring Bela's signature melodic single string work. The Grascals did a fine job at the Strawberry Park Bluegrass Festival in Preston, Connecticut, back in June, 2011. Kristen Scott Benson is on banjo. Finally, no lesson would be complete without a video of the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, from a performance at the IBMA convention in Nashville, in September, 2011. | |
LESSON
29 * 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 British street musician David Hum, who is always good for a lively, creative take on an old standard. | |
LESSON
30 |
Notes: We are going to stay in open D tuning this week with a version of Home Sweet Home that loosely follows the version played by Don Reno, as recorded 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. As part of his performance, Reno 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 of the strings. 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. He is in C tuning. 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 plays 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. | |
LESSON
31 |
Notes: This week we are going to go back to open G tuning to learn the classic Earl Scruggs instrumental Shuckin' the Corn. This refers to the step of removing the outer husk and silks from an ear of corn before cooking, a farm chore often given to the kids to do while the parent prepares the rest of the dinner. This is Earl's original version from the 1957 Columbia album Foggy Mountain Jamboree. There is a lot of unusual use of the backword roll in this tune, and some nice new up the neck licks to learn. For the most part, Earl just vamps behind the fiddle and dobros while playing backp-up, but I've used the opportunity to try a new closed position back-up lick that is used a lot in Scruggs style picking. Shuckin' the Corn was the first cut on Eric Weissberg's landmark album for Elektra Records, New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass, recorded in 1963. This was later later reissued by Warner Brothers as Dueling Banjos. Weissberg throws in a lot of melodic and Reno style single string phrasing that was very groundbreaking in 1963. Allen Shelton, long tune banjo picker for Jim & Jesse McReynolds, also recorded the tune, which was included on a 2010 Gusto Records CD of his banjo instrumentals called At His Best, released shortly after Shelton's death. There are several great performances of Shuckin' the Corn uploaded to the Banjo Hangout MP3 archive by members. One of the finest is by Royce Burt (royce) of Plant City, Florida. Royce plays all of the instruments on the recording. Another smooth rendition comes from Missourian Adam Majors (adamaj), whose up-tempo timing is amazingly clean. There were also some notable renditions of Shuckin' the Corn on YouTube; Raymond Fairchild's 2008 live performance includes a lot of his wild single string licks that jump all over the neck, both visually and musically entertaining. Terry Baucom picked the tune with the Kruger Brothers at the 2008 IBMA Convention in Nashville. Jens Kruger does not take a lead break, but does some amazing double banjo work starting around 2:25. J.D. Crowe and The New South performed the tune at concert in Madison, Wisconsin in 2010, where J.D. showed he still had the edge. British street performer and banjo wizard Dave Hum shows off his Shucking the Corn in another amazing solo presentation from May, 2012. And finally, young Johhny Mizzone of the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys rips through the tune, in a video from August, 2011.. |
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LESSON
32 |
Notes: This very old fiddle tune, sometimes called Susannah Gal, or Western Country, is a good example of a tune which originated as a "play party" song. In the 19th and early 20th Century, play parties were social gatherings of young people throughout rural America, where the attendees participated in games set to music that looked an awful lot like dancing, but weren't, because dancing was considered sinful. The lyrics are only sung to the melody of the A part. You hear the tune played at old time jams quite a bit around Boston, including Alan Kaufman's jam at the Skellig. The most common version of Fly Around is in the key of D on the fiddle.In this lesson, we are going to learn the tune in C tuning (gCGBD), capoed on the second fret. In the next lesson, we will learn the tune in Open D tuning (aDF#AD), so that you can really experience the differences between the two. I have made a video of the lesson arrangement, which I have posted on YouTube. The second video features the Gibson Brothers, performing at the Ossipee Valley Music Festival in Maine, in July, 2010. Eric Gibson is on banjo, with Joe Walsh on Mandolin and Clayton Campbell on fiddle. The banjo break starts at 0:58. Thye are playing the tune in the key of A, not the usual key. The last recording is an lively old timey performance by John Kirk and Trish Miller of Saratoga Springs, New York, from a self-produced 2000 CD entitled Fly Around. This is a good example showing how the original play party lyrics are interspersed within the tune performance in old time music. | |
LESSON
33 |
Notes: For this lesson, we are going to learn to pick the banjo on Dolly Parton's popular country song Jolene, based on the bluegrass version recorded by Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, with the big man Kenny Ingram on banjo. The song is performed here in the key of D Minor, played on the banjo in open G tuning, no capo. This version is from Vincent's 2005 CD, Ragin' Live, and the corresponding music video which is posted on YouTube. Vincent has used a number of banjo pickers over the years, including Tom Adams, featured in the 2001 video from the Blistered Fingers Famliy Bluegrass Festival in Sidney, Maine, and most recently Aaron McDaris, who replaced Ingram in 2008, shown in this 2012 video from the Jenny Brook Family Bluegrass Festival in Tunbridge, Vermont. Note how similar each banjo picker plays the introduction, and the rolling back-up as well. Of course, you can't beat Dolly's original, which was a huge hit for her in 1974. This YouTube upload is from a 2003 compilation CD entitled Ultimate Dolly Parton. The last video features country/bluegrass singer Allison Krauss, performing at a 2006 Kennedy Center concert honoring Dolly Parton and four other American artists with lifetime achievement awards. Krauss was joined by two other women in bluegrass, Suzanne Cox of the Cox Family, and Cheryl White of the Whites. | |
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LESSON
34 |
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
35 |
Notes: This week we are tackling Earl's arrangement of what many consider the quintessential fiddle tune, Sally Goodin. Scruggs first recorded this as "Sally Goodwin" on the Foggy Mountain Banjo album, but Earl and the band moved the beat on the A-part on that recording, creating confusion among banjo pickers for decades. Scruggs plays it "straight" in a performance with the Celtic music group The Chieftains, on YouTube. I have made an MP3 from this performance, which provides the basis for most of tablature setting, both the full performance, and Earl's first break only. The third MP3 is the original cut from Foggy Mountain Banjo, recorded in 1961. This basic five-string three-finger style arrangement actually predates Earl; many of Scruggs' contemporaries claim it originates with Smith Hammett, the famous Cleveland County, North Carolina three-finger pioneer who heavily influenced Earl's brother Junie, Snuffy Jenkins, and Earl himself. there are no recordings of Hammett in existence, but you can hear how close Jenkins is to the Scruggs version from his recording on the 1958 Folkways album American Banjo- Three Finger and Scruggs Style. This classic Scruggs-style setting is considered the "piece de resistance" for intricate up the neck right hand timing, and virtually every professional bluegrass banjo picker pays homage to Scruggs and his predecessors on this number. J.D. Crowe's version, from his 1972 Rounder album J.D. Crowe and the New South is a fine example. Alan Munde first recorded Sally Goodin on the now out of print 1976 album for Ridgerunner Records called poor Richard's Almanac, that he recorded with Sam Bush and Wayne Stuart. He reprised his performance for Ridgerunner in the 1980s, these were released again on a 1993 Rounder Record entitled Festival Favorites Revisited. I've included two other MP3s of Sally Goodin banjo breaks taken from YouTube performances, which are also included. Blake Williams is the picker on the Bill Monroe video, and John Hickman who picks with Byron Berline, and now teaches banjo at Berline's Double Stop Fiddle Shop in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Both Williams and Hickman start with the classic Scruggs arrangement, and then break out. The last MP3 is a recording for Victor Records by the legendary Texas fiddler A.C. "Eck" Robertson, made in 1922, in what is the first known recording session for a country music performer. Robertson's recording of Sally Goodin (which was titled Sally Gooden), with its many subtle variations, is still considered the classic version which has influenced generations of subsequent bluegrass and old time musicians. It has been reissued in a number of compilations, including a 1998 County Records CD entitled Old Time Texas Fiddler. I've also included several noteworthy YouTube videos of Sally Goodin. The first is the Chieftains and Earl, from a live performance at Kansas State University in 1972. The next two are the videos from which the Williams and Hickman clips were taken. Williams is playing wioth Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, from a Grand Old Opry performance around 1985. Glen Duncan is the fiddler. Monroe does some nice southern flatfoot dancing at the end of the video. Hickman is doing duty with the Byron Berline Band in a live performance in Guthrie, in 2007. I've also included a video from the Joe Val festival, featuring Jens Kruger on banjo, and Bobby Hicks and Michael Cleveland on fiddles. Cleveland was the fiddler on Rhonda Vincent's Jolene video. |
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LESSON
36 |
Notes: In the spirit of Christmas, we are going to learn an old melody on the banjo that is often associated with the holiday season. Greensleeves is an English folksong that dates back to at least the 16th Century, and folk tradition has it that it was originally composed by Henry VIII, in order to woo Anne Boleyn. That story is unlikely, but from the beginning, it's melody has also been used for a number of Christmas carols; the most popular of these is the carol What Child Is This, lyric written in 1865 by Englishman William Chatterton Dix. The tune dates to the period when the music of the common people was slowly transforming from the modal system of the medievil period to the modern tonal system that developed in the later Reanissance. Thus, like many tunes of the period, the melody of Greensleeves is more or less in a modern minor scale, but with some deviations that are more ancient in tone. For this arrangement, the banjo is tuned to open D (aDF#AD), but the tune itself is in D minor, more or less. The middle section is a forward roll back-up that chordally decends on the 1st and 2nd strings, but it also works as a simple melodic variation. I have added a nice MP3 from Banjo Hangout picker Doug Knecht, very well arranged and played. I have included several additional YouTube videos which are interesting. The first is a classic style choral performance by The King's Singers, from a 2008 live concert produced by the BBC. The second is a fine version played on lute by Renaissance guitarist Valery Sauvage. Being a traditionalist myself, I tried in this setting to evoke on banjo the feel of that style of music. In contrast, Ross Nickerson has converted the tune into a sprightly bluegrass breakdown, from one of his demonstration videos. | |
LESSON
37 |
Notes: My Grandfather's Clock is a 19th Century sentimental popular song written by Henry C. Work, the songwriter who also wrote Marching Through Georgia, and the Ship That Never Returned. The latter song was the basis for both the Wreck of the Old 97, and Charlie on the MBTA. My Grandfather's Clock, or more commonly, Grandfather's Clock, spread throughout the nation's musical culture over the decades, and ended up in the repertoires of musicians playing country music, early jazz, bluegrass, and folk. This is my own arrangement in standard G Tuning, with both an open position and up the neck break. It also provides an opportunity to practice back up skills, and learn a new back closed position up lick. The first YouTube video is an upload of a recording made by Don Reno, with his partner Red Smiley, for King Records in 1962, oriignally released on an album called Another Day With Reno And Smiley. Two years later, King Records released the recording again on an album entitled Bluegrass Hootenanny, which featured Don Reno and Red Smiley on one side, and the Stanley Brothers on the other. The upload was made from a copy of this LP. Both LPs are now out of print, and as far as I can tell, the Grandfather's Clock cut has not been reissued. The next video is an upload from an iconic but mysterious album released in 1963 by Somerset Records, featuring a group called Homer and the Barnstormers; the album was called Blue Grass Banjos on Fire. No one had ever heard of this group- the musicians were not identified in the liner notes- and the group never identified themselves or appeared in public. In all probability, the musicians chose to remain anonymous due to contract restrictions imposed by their own record labels. The general consensus is that the five string banjo player was Buck Trent, who was a member of Porter Wagoner's country and western band at the time. Wagoner is best known for giving Dolly Parton her start in country music. Trent would later work with country and television personality Roy Clark, and in later years would follow Clark to Branson, Missouri, the capital of country music nostalgia. Trent would reprise his Barnstormers' Grandfather's Clock performance in a live recording from his Branson musical showcase, The Buck Trent Show, released by Gusto Records in 2005. The third video is an upload of a solo performance, both instrumental and vocal, by the legendary Doc Watson, from a Sugar Hill CD first released in 1994, called Songs From the Southern Mountains. The CD was a compilation of previously unreleased Watson faily recordings from the sixties. The Seldom Scene performance is an upload from a 1975 Rebel Records album entitled Live at the Cellar Door. The banjo player is Ben Eldridge, now the only remaining charter member of the Scene still with the group.. A tablature of his first break is available in the Banjo Hangout Tab Archive. The Cellar Door was a Washington CD music club, which closed in 1981. The next video is another audio upload, a duet by avante garde bluegrass impresarios David Grisman and Tony Rice, from their 1994 Acoustic Disc CD entitled Tone Poems. No banjo, but a very pretty performance. Next is a 2008 personal video uploaded by BHO member Jason Skinner, who has made a lifelong study of the playing of Don Reno. Skinner essentially replicates Reno's 1962 performance, wth an excellent view of the left hand work. The next video is a live performance by the Kruger Brothers, with Jens Kruger on banjo, and brother Ewe on vacal and guitar. This is from a concert at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Utica, New York, in July, 2009. The brothers recorded this for their 2004 Double Time CD entitled Choices. Leroy Troy is playing in an old time two finger style in this next video, which features the banjo visual effects pioneered by old-time country music legend Uncle Dave Macon. The last video is form my on-line BHO friend Dave Hum, from Salisbury, United Kingdom. The video shows Dave busking in August, 2012, just a few months before he succumbed to cancer, in November, 2012. he also recorded this for a 2011 CD entitled Celtic and Bluegrass 5 String Banjo, Vol. 2. His picking was always filled with joy and good humor, and he always had words of encouragement for those who posted music on the Hangout. He is greatly missed. | |
LESSON
38 |
Notes: For the lesson this week, we are going to learn Little Birdie, one of two songs scheduled for the kids jam at the BBU's Joe Val Bluegrass Festival in Framingham in February. In order to be in the assigned key of D, the banjo arrangement is set in standard C tuning (gCGBD), to be capoed on the 2nd fret. There is both an open position and up the neck break, with a simple back-up that imitates the old clawhammer rhythm. Little Birdie is an old Kentucky mountain banjo song and tune that was customarily played in a two finger picking style similar to clawhammer, except that the index finger picked upwards, as in bluegrass style, rather than down. Among bluegrass adherents, the song is generally associated with Ralph Stanley, who first recorded it with his brother Carter in 1952, for Starday/King Records. This is the first MP3; it has been reissued on a number of compilations, including a 1965 Gusto Records LP called The Stanley Brothers 16 Greatest Hits, since reissued on CD. Ralph picks this tune in the classic two finger up-picking style, rather than three finger style. Today he plays it in clawhammer down-picking style. Probably the most widely copied old time performance is from mountaineer Roscoe Holcomb, from Daisy, Kentucky, who was discovered by musician and folklorist John Cohen in the late 50s. Holcomb's haunting version was recorded by Folkways Records in 1961. It was reissued in 1998 by Smithsonian Folkway Records on a CD called Roscoe Holcomb: The High Lonesome Sound. Holcomb passed away in 1981. One of the more compelling interpretations of Holcomb's sound comes from old time banjoist and artist Art Rosenbaum, from a now out of print Kicking Mule record called The Art of the Mountain Banjo. There are a number of MP3 recordings of Little Birdie in the Banjo Hangout archives; I have picked out three for highlight. The first was uploaded in 2008 by BHO member Nick Piccininni of Waterville, New York, and features his band Blue Lighting, with Puccininni picking a mean bluegrass style banjo. His timing is impeccable, but I could have done without the cowbell. BHO member Doug Knecht also plays Little Birdie in three finger style with his band; Doug's 2012 upload is in more of a blues style interpretation. The last BHO upload is one of mine, a home recording I made in 1998 with a band we called Wry Whiskey. Brian Clancey is picking guitar, and Tom Speth is on bass. There are a number of YouTube videos of Little Birdie; I have picked
out six for special note. The first is an audio upload of a recording
made for Vocalian in 1938 by the Coon
Creek Girls. This has been reissued by County Records on a CD entitled
The
Coon Creek Girls, Lily May, Rosie & Susie. The banjo picking
was done by Lily
May Ledford. The second video is an audio upload of a recording by
The Kossoy Sisters,
Irene Saletan and Ellen Christenson, from their 1956 album on Tradition
Records called Bowling
Green, The Kossoy Sisters with Eric Darling. The album has been
reissued on CD by Rykodisc. The third video is another audio upload, taken
from a now out of print 1962 Vanguard Record called The Greenbriar
Boys, who were perhaps the first northern urban bluegrass band organized
during the folk revival. You can watch Roscoe Holcomb perform Little Birdie
in this interview documentary produced probably in the early sixties by
Mike Seeger, called A Banjo from Kentucky. Little Birdie is the
first performance, and starts around 0:37. Pete
Seeger gives his interpretation of Little Birdie in this clip from
his 1965-66 television show, Rainbow
Quest. The last video is a fine, creative performance by BHO member
Marc
Nerenberg, Montreal, Canada, from an appearance at Montreal's Yellow
Door Coffeehouse in October, 2011. Mark is playing a six string banjo,
with a hook on the sixth string at the fifth fret, so that the string
can function just like the fifth string on a five string banjo. |
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LESSON
39 |
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
40 |
Notes: This week we are lookin g at the picking of Greg Cahill, the leader and banjo picker for the Chicago based bluegrass band Special Consensus. The song is one of their signature numbers, What Will Become of Me, written by Virginia bluegrass singer and songwriter Johnny Williams. This recording is from the Consensus fifth release, the 2005 Pinecastle CD Everythings Allright. Special Consensus performs the song in the key of Bb, so the banjo will be tuned in open G, with the capo on the 3rd fret. The lead singing is done by mandolinist Rick Faris; Cahill does not participate in the chorus trio singing, so he is free to provide a steady mostly roll-based back up, what is sometimes called the "wall of banjo sound." There are two videos of Special Consensus performing What Will Become of Me; the first is from the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival in 2007, and the second from the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Oak Hill, New York, in 2010. There is also a video of Johnny Williams performing the song with his wife Jeanette, from a concert at The Front Porch Gallery, Woodlawn, Virginia, August, 2010. | |
LESSON
41 |
Notes: We're going to learn a new song this week called Bury Me Beneath the Willow, in order to introduce the concept of playing in the key of D out of open G tuning, an approach to playing in D which has become very popular with current bluegrass banjo pickers. The only retuning nencessary is to raise the 5th string from G up to A, by slipping it under the spike at the 7th fret. Note that the up the neck break is almost identical fingering to the open position break, just located 12 frets (an octave) higher on the neck. The fill-in licks found in the back up are based on patterns learned in Back-Up Exercises 5, 9 and 10. Bury Me Beneath the Willow is an old mountain folk song first made popular in country music by the original Carter Family, in a 1928 Victor recording. This has been reissued on an LP entitled RCA Country Legends-The Carter Family. The second MP3 is a classic guitar duet from Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice, from their album Skaggs & Rice, The Essential Old-Time Country Duet Recordings, released by Sugar Hill Records in 2000. There are pages of postings of Bury Me Beneath the Willow on YouTube; I have picked out three as especially interesting: the first is a concert video of the Bluegrass All-Stars- Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, David Grisman, J.D. Crowe, and Mark Schatz. The second is a video of Doc Watson and Chris Thile, joined by Sara Watkins, her brother Sean Watkins, and Bob House, from a performance at MerleFest 2002. Thile, who also plays with the band The Punch Brothers, is perhaps the most notable mandolin player in bluegrass today. The last is a famous clip of Roy Clark and the late Bobby Thompson from a Hee Haw episode from the mid-80s, which always generates an argument every once in awhile on the Banjo Hangout over whether or not Roy Clark was any good on banjo. He sounds right fine to me. For a tab of Bury Me Beneath the Willow in the key of G, click here. |
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| LESSON
42 (4/10/13) I'll Fly Away TEF I'll Fly Away Lyrics Back Up Exercise 12 Back Up Exercise 13 Back Up Exercise 14 Back Up Exercise 15 I'll Fly Away MP3 (Osborne) I'll Fly Away MP3 (Stanley) I'll Fly Away MP3 (Krauss & Welch) I'll Fly Away MP3 (Cash) I'll Fly Away BHO MP3 (Finlayson) I'll Fly Away YouTube (Williams) I'll Fly Away YouTube (Hee Haw) I'll Fly Away YouTube (Monroe & Stanley) I'll Fly Away YouTube (Watson) TOP |
Notes: We are going to start this week on a series of lessons intended to strengthen your ability to play spontaneous back-up, to begin breaking away from reliance on tab. The tune is the I'll Fly Away, an old gospel standard written in 1929 by Albert E. Brumley, who also composed , 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 I'll Fly Away. In the follow up lesson, you will have to play both the lead and back-up for the song WITHOUT BENEFIT OF THE TAB! The tablature of I'll Fly Away is based on an instrumental version of the hymn recorded and released in 1978 by the Osborne Brothers on a now out of print CMH album enntitled Bluegrass Concerto. It has been re-released on a number of multi-artist blugrass compilations, including a 2008 CMH CD called The Absolute Best of Bluegrass Gospel. Sonny is picking the banjo. Normally, if I'll Fly Away is being performed as a vocal, the instrumental breaks would generally be comprised of just the verse melody, or even just a fragement of that, but as this is an instrumental, both the verse and chorus melodies are included in the breaks. Sonny Osborne, of course, is doing the banjo work. No one sang gospel music with more spirit than the Stanley Brothers, Carter and Ralph. They recorded I'll Fly Away in 1962, for a now out or print King Records album called Good Old Camp Meeting Songs. The cut has been reissued in 2005 on a Gusto Records CD entitled The Stanley Brothers: 16 Greatest Gospel Hits. In this performance, the instrumental interludes are only half break turn-arounds between verses. The third MP3 is a duet performance by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch, from the soundtrack from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? There is no banjo, but the cut has some wonderful duet singing. The next MP3 is a spirited rendition by country music legend Johnny Cash, from a American Recordings CD entitled My Mother's Hymn Book, released in 2004. This cut features Cash singing alone, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. There is one fine redition of I'll Fly Away in the Banjo Hangout music archives from BHO member Johnny Fenlayson, who plays banjo for Darlene and the Reflections of Bluegrass, a band based in Columbia, South Carolina. There are quite a few peformances of I'll Fly Away on YouTube; I have
singled out three that I think are particularly interesting. The first
is an upload of a recording by country music legend Hank
Williams, Sr., available as an MP3 download from Amazon, form a coompilation
called Hank
Williams: The Unreleased Recordings, compiled by Time-Life Music
in 2008. The second video is a clip from a 1973 episode of the television
country music variety show Hee Haw, featuring Grandpa
Jones, Stringbean
and Roy Clark
on banjo, with vocal help from the pop-country crooner Tennessee
Ernie Ford. The music starts at 0:33. The next video was recorded
at the Carter Stanley Memorial Bluegrass Festival in McClure, Virginia
in May, 1977, and features Bill
Monroe, Ralph
Stanley, the Marshall Family, along with Moon Mullens, Carl Story,
Melvin Goins, and a host of other bluegrass notables. Monroe's banjo picker
at that time, Larry Beasley, takes a very fine break at 1:14. The last
video is a live performance of Doc Watson, backed up by The
Nashville Bluegrass Band, at MerleFest in April, 2012. Doc passed
away just one month later. The banjo player in the NBB's Alan
O'Bryant. |
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LESSON
43 |
Notes: The subject of the next two lessons is the old Ozark fiddle tune Eighth of January, supposedly first composed in the early 1800s to commemorate the victory of then Colonel Andrew Jackson's polyglot force of 6,000 frontier militia, Choctaw Indians, Hatian refugees, and pirates, over a British force of over 10,000 at the Battle of New Orleans in January of 1815. In 1936, a 29 year old school teacher from Timbo, Arkansas named James Corbitt Morris decided to inspire his students interest in history by writing a number of songs about historical subjects, one of which he called The Battle of New Orleans, which he set, fittingly, to the tune Eighth of January. In 1957, Corbitt was discovered by an RCA talent scout, and was brought to Nashville, where he recorded his song under the stage name Jimmy Driftwood. A shortened version of Driftwood's song (with certain profanities removed) would be covered by country singer Johnny Horton two years later, which turned out to be the big hit of Horton's short career. Horton's Columbia Records single has been issued on a 1999 Columbia Nashville CD entitled Johnny Horton - 16 Biggest Hits. Horton sang The Battle of New Orleans in the key of A, but the original fiddle tune was in the key of D, where most fiddlers still play it today. One of best versions I have ever heard was recorded by country fiddler Jerry Rivers, who was the long time fiddle player in Hank Williams' band, the Drifting Cowboys. This recording is from a live 1951 performance on Hank's WSN radio show, sponsored by Mother's Best Flour. it is included in a collection of the Williams' radio transcriptions,released in 2009 by Time Life Entertainment in a boxed CD set called Hank Williams: Revealed. After Williams died in 1953, at the age of 29, his wife married Johnny Horton. Ironically, Horton would also die young in a car accident in 1969, making Billy Jean twice a widow. Many bluegrass pickers play Eighth of January in the key of G, because of a widely copied melodic banjo version in G tuning recorded by Eric Weissberg, for an influential 1963 Elektra Records album he recorded with Marshall Brickman entitled New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass. When nine years later Dueling Banjos became a huge hit for Weissberg and Warner Brothers, the producers of the movie Deliverance, the media giant purchased the rights to the album from Elektra, and repackaged it adding the new hit, under the new album title Dueling Banjos: From The Original Soundtrack 'Deliverance'. This was released on CD in 1990. There are pages of posts of Eighth of January on YouTube. I have selected four of interest for this week's lesson, and will add several more for the follow up lesson. The first video is a performance by Nashville fiddler Craig Duncan, accompanied by melodic clawhammer Ken Perlman, who looks a little lost, because Duncan is fiddling in the key of G to accomodate his vocal range. Perlman knows the tune in the key of D, so he has to fake it to keep up with Duncan. This was taped at the Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp, Winter Park, Colorado, in August, 2006. The second features the late Dave Hum, a British street musician who played a unique, lyrical five string banjo style. The third video is an upload of a humorous take-off performed by Hank Williams, Jr. with Don Helms, called the Ballad of Hank Williams, set to the tune of Eighth of January/Battle of New Orleans. Helms, who wrote this very funny parody, played steel guitar for Hank Williams Sr. as one of the Drifting Cowboys. Hank Williams Jr. included the Ballad of Hank Williams on his 1981 Elektra album The Pressure Is On, rereleased on CD by Curb records in 1995. Be forwarned, this song/recitation contains some profanity which was NOT expunged prior to recording! Finally, I have included an amusing video which illustrates the Battle of New Orleans with animated LEGO figures, set to Horton's original recording. Very funny. This week's tab arrangement of Eighth of January is set in the bluegrass key of G, in standard open G tuning. It starts out with open position and up the neck breaks in Scruggs style, adds some open posiiton roll-based back-up, and then moves first into Eric Weissberg's melodic version, and then one of Dave Hum's more signature breaks, typical of his very loose, skiffle style of picking, mixing Scruggs, melodic, single string, and chord based melody all in one break. In the next lesson, we will learn a version of Eighth of January in open D tuning, the original and still most common fiddle key. |
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LESSON
44 |
Notes: Last week we learned a version of the old tune Eighth of January that was in the key of G, and more lyrical in that it more reflected the simple melody of the song about the Battle of New Orleans by Jimmy Driftwood. This week, we will look at the tune again, this time as a fiddle melody in they key of D, the key in which it is almost always played by tradiitonal fiddlers. The banjo will be tuned in open D tuning (aDF#AD). There is both an open posiiton, and an intricate up the neck break in the tab. I am playing the arrangement in a duet with my clawhammer picking friend Ed Britt, in a recording we made in January, 2012. It is said that the old fiddle tune was written, or perhaps renamed, to celebrate the final battle of the War of 1812. The battle made a national hero of the American commander, Andrew Jackson, and eventually propelled him to the presidency in 1828, and fiddlers throughout the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas both balck and white, began playing the tune then called Jackson's Victory, continuing a long tradition of commemorative tune naming. By the time of the Civil War and its aftermath, however, the Democratic Party and the reputation of its main hero had both fallen under a cloud, and the fiddlers began referring to the tune by the date of the battle, rather than the surname of its hero. Hence the title Eighth of January. The earliest fiddle recordings of tunes called the 8th of January were made in 1928. The first was by a group which called themselves the Arkansas Barefoot Boys, with one Cyrus Futrell on fiddle. This sounds only vaguely like the Eighth of January we play today. It can be found on a County Records album entitled Echoes Of The Ozarks, Volume Two, first released in 1970. The first recordings I could find that sound like the tune we know today as the 8th of January were collected by musicologists Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin at a migrant workers camp in California in August of 1940. These are all available at the Library of Congress American Memories, Voices from the Dust Bowl Collection website. The prevalence of this tune among the musicians at the camp could be an indication that it was well known throughout the Dust Bowl, where the migrants were generally from. I've included one of these recordings, made in August, 1940, of J.D. Allen on fiddle, accompanied by Tommy Rhoades on guitar. Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, who played with Uncle Dave Macon and the McGee Brothers on the early Grand Old Opry, made a home recording of the tune in the early 1950s; the entire collection of tunes is available as a free download. One of my favorite country fiddlers, Tommy Jackson, recorded the tune for Dot Records in 1954, though it was not released until 1960, when it was included on a now out of print album entitled Square Dance Festival, Vol. 1. I have included one MP3 from the archives of the Banjo Hangout, by clawhammer stryle by Steve Srubas of Green Bay, Wisconson. |
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| LESSON
45 |
Notes: Jambalaya is a traditional Louisiana Cajun/Creole dish made with meat, seafood, vegatables, rice, and soup stock, all mixed together and simmered for several hours, to make a tender and spicy stew. It's also the title of one of country music legend Hank Williams' most popular songs. Released by MGM Records as a single in July,1952, it was a number one hit for the singer for ten weeks. Williams, who spent much of his short career as a member of the Louisiana Hayride, used a traditional Cajun melody for his Cajun-themed lyrics. The recording is included in a number of compilations, including a CD called Hank Williams: The Ultimate Collection, released by Mercury Nashville in 2002. Decades later, in 1978, Jambalaya was a hit for Cajun country star Doug Kershaw, who included the song on a now out of print Warner Brothers album called Louisiana Man. This has been reissued by Warner Brothers on a 1989 CD called The Best of Doug Kershaw. While Jambalaya has been covered by a great many country and rockabilly artists, including George Jones, Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty, Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens, John Prine, Leon Russell and Freddy Fender, it came as a surprise to me that I was unable to find a recording by a well known bluegrass act. Williams recorded Jamblaya in the key of C, so today's lesson is arranged in the same key. It provides a useful exercise in playing in the key of C out of open G tuning, where the closed position back-up licks used in the key of G can be easily transposed to C. The back up in the Jambalaya tablature has been left undefined, so that the key of C practice licks found in the back-up exercises, both roll-based open position patterns and closed position licks, can be spontaneously inserted. There are quite a few versions of Jambalaya uploaded to YouTube, including a few unremarkable bluegrass versions by some local bands. I have picked four videos, none of them bluegrass, that I thought especially interesting. The first is a performance by a very young rockabilly star Leon Russell, from a 1965 appearance on the ABC television show Shindig. The baby-faced banjo player is Glen Campbell, who was a regular cast musician on the show for several years. Campbell is basically a prop, you cannot hear the banjo in the sound track. When this show was taped, Campbell was still struggling to build his solo career, a full two years before his recording of Gentle on My Mind would make him a star. The second is an audio upload of Jambalaya performed by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, from their 1971 Capitol album All the Good Times, rereleased on CD in 2009. The next video is an audio upload of Cajun/Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier, from his album The King of Zydeco Live At Montreux, Switzerland, first released by Arhoolie Records in 1984, from live recordings made at the Montreuz Jazz Festival in 1975. Zydeco music is Louisiana Cajun music performed with a Mississippi delta blues flavor. Emmylou Harris performs an especially animated Jambalaya in this next video, from a March, 1980 concert at the Zurich Country and Western Festival, in Zurich, Switzerland. The last video features Doug Kershaw, from a live concert filmed at the Cajun Cafe on the Bayou, Tampa Bay, Florida, in March 2002, twenty-four years after his original hit record. This is from a Kultur Video DVD entitled The Ragin' Cajun, Live in Concert. |
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LESSON
46 |
Notes: This week, we are going to revisit again the song from Lessons 4 and 19, the classic bad man ballad Jesse James. The original lead break and back are still in the tab, but I have added an up the neck break, and an open break variation. The second back up also provides practice in earlier licks from Back Up Exercises 6 and 7. I have added a few more performances of Jesse James for inspiration.
The first is a double banjo instrumental recorded by the Osborne
Brothers, from an out of print 1962 MGM album called Bluegrass
Instrumentals by the Osborne Brothers. The second banjo was played
by sideman Benny Birchfield, who was usually on guitar. Birchfield wrote
the banjo instrumental Big Ben, which is a staple in the repertoire of
"Dr. Banjo" Pete Wernick. Two newish YouTube uploads are memorable.
The first is a duet by bluegrass guitar greats Norman
Blake and Tony
Rice, from a live performance at the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival
in Hillsdale, New York, in July, 1989. Blake is singing an older set of
lyrics, with some history references not found in the more widespread
version. The second video is a banjo duet by Pete
Wernick and Australian picker Wendy
Holman, demonstrating banjo harmony, recorded at a workahop ast Pete's
Bluegrass Banjo Camp, in Boulder, Co. in January, 2009. |
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LESSON
47 |
Notes: This week we are going to learn one of the great bluegrass banjo instrumentals, called Theme Time. It was written by superpicker Bill Emerson, during his days with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, when the band recorded some of the most classic recordings in bluegrass music. The tab is based upon the orginal recording, cut in July, 1965, and released by Decca in 1967 on a now out of print LP entitled Big And Country Instrumentals. This version of the Sunny Mountain Boys included Emerson on banjo, Earl Taylor on mandolin, Vernon Derrick on fiddle, Lightnin Chance on bass, and William Ackerman on drums. In 1971, a group of young Syracuse, New York musicians formed the progressive bluegrass band Country Cooking, and came out with an album on Rounder Records of the same name, whihc had a great impact on bluegrass banjo. It was the new record company's sixth album. The album group included Tony Trischka and Pete Wernick on banjo, Russ Barenberg on guitar, Kenny Kosek on fiddle, John Miller on bass, and Harry "Tersh" Gilmore on mandolin. The group established a bluegrass precedent by recording Theme Time as a banjo duet. Rounder Records re-released the album in 1988, adding twelve additional cuts, changing the title to Country Cooking: 26 Bluegrass Instrumentals. One of the hottest versions of Theme Time was recorded by Jim Mills, on his solo debut Sugar Hill CD called Hide Head Blues, released in 2005. There are a whole bunch of versions of Theme Time uploaded to the Banjo Hangout MP3 Archive. My hands-down favorite was recorded by Royce Burt (Royce), Plant City, Florida, uploaded in October, 2006. There are quite a few versions of Theme Time uploaded to YouTube; I have selected two of particular interest. The first is a performance bya much older Bill Emerson and Sweet Dixie, with a young guest named Danielle Sargent also on banjo, from an Ashland, Virginia concert in August, 2010. The pikcing starts at 1:37. While they do play double banjo during the performance, neither is actually playing a harmony in the style of Country Cooking. The second video features the group Hot Mustard. with Bruce Stockwell and Bill Jubett, both on banjo, from a performance at the 2011 Joe Val Bluegrass Festival in Framingham, Massachusetts. Some really spectacular variations here, a key change, and some neat bluesy harmony at the end! Stockwell has long been one of New England's premier bluegrass pickers. |
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| LESSON
48 |
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. Just a few years later, Eric Weissberg recorded the tune for the influential 1963 Elektra Records album he recorded with Marshall Brickman entitled New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass. This cut features the late, great Clarence White on guitar. This album was later re-released by Warner Brothers, the producers of the movie Deliverance, under the new title Dueling Banjos: From The Original Soundtrack 'Deliverance'. In 1971, Country Cooking, the New York band with double banjo by Tony Trishka and Pete Wernick, included the tune on their first Rounder Records album. The two original Country Cooking albums have been reissued by Rounder on a single CD called Country Cooking, 26 Bluegrass Instrumentals. There are a number of good versions posted on YouTube. In the first, Pete Wernick reprises his earlier performance in a live 1994 jam session with Doc Watson, Jerry Douglas, Tim O'Brien, Jack Lawrence and T. Michael Coleman at the 1994 Winterhawk Festival in Hillsdale, New York. 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. Next is a quick demonstration of Farewell Blues by "clawgrass" Mark Johnson, playing in his unique crossover clawhammer style, in a video uploaded in February, 2013. 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. |
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LESSON
49 |
Notes: By request, this week we are going to learn the song Wagon Wheel, based loosely on the 2004 hit recording of the Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show, on their fourth album, entitled O.C.M.S. There is no lead banjo on this recording, so I have arranged a series of banjo breaks which are very loosely based upon the fiddling of Ketcham Secor, who also sang lead on this number. There is some five string picking going on in the background, likely played by Critter Fuqua, but it is barely audible. I have left the back-up open, so that you can practice improvising both open position roll pattern noodling and closed position vamping and fill-in. I have also included a simple exercise using the forward and reverse roll patterns for back-up. Bob Dylan
originally wrote the song Wagon Wheel back in 1973, for use on the soundtrack
of the movie Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid. In the movie, directed by the legendary
Sam Peckinpah, country singer and actor Chris Kristofferson played the
role of Garrett, and Dylan played the role of the outlaw Billy. He made
this test recording of Wagon Wheel, the second of two, but in the end
it was used in the film or released, until Dylan included it together
with other outtakes and soundtrack material on a now out of print album
for Spank records, called Pecos Blues, released in 1994. It was this recording
that O.C.M.S. used as the basis for their own recording. Since the verses
were mostly inaudible, they used Dylan's chorus, but wrote mostly new
lyrics for the verses. Another notable Wagon Wheel cover was recently
recorded and released by R&B and country singer Darius
Rucker, on his 10 Spot Records CD, True
Believers. |
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| LESSON
50 |
Notes: Thanks to its use as a plot device in the Coen brothers' movie O' Brother, Where Art Thou? back in 2000, there is probably a no more popularly recognizable bluegrass song than I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow. In the movie, three escaped convicts, led by George Clooney, become famous country music stars when they record the song incognito for a rural Mississippi radio station, while on the run from the sheriff. The fleeing convicts call themselves The Soggy Bottom Boys (n obvious pun on Flatt & Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Boys that probably escaped most of the movie audience), and as the story unfolds, the growing popularity of their song "as far away as Mobile" earns them a pardon from the Governor. The real lead voice on the soundtrack recording was bluegrass singer Dan Tyminski, who was then, and still is, a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station. The soundtrack performance was modeled on a late-fifties recording by the Stanley Brothers, but the song itself first showed up in a songbook published in 1913 by a blind Kentucky fiddler and banjo picker named Dick Burnett, and as a result, Burnett is usually credited as the author of the song. Burnett would later partner with fiddler Leonard Rutherford to form the recording duo of Burnett and Rutherford, but no recording of Man of Constant Sorrow by either of them is known to exist. The first commercial recording of the song was made for Vocalion Records in 1928 by another early country singer, Emry Arthur. This has been reissued by County Records on a CD collection entitled Emry Arthur: I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow. It was probably from Arthur's recording that Ralph Stanley's father first heard the song; Stanley remembers as a child hearing his father sing it unaccompanied late at night on the front porch of their mountain home, along with many other old-time ballads that his father knew by heart. In 1950, during the Stanley Brother's second recording session for Columbia Records, at the Tulane Hotel in Nashville, the record producer, Art Satherly, given Ralph his first opportunity to record a a few solo vocals. In earlier recording sessions, Ralph had stuck to singing tenor behind his brother Carter. He chose to first record I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow. Ralph writes in his autobiography, "I worried my lines like my dad used to out on the porch, but I set it to a new timing. It fit the words better, because it is about a man on the run... It's about trying to outrun your troubles, and never finding rest." Ralph was not happy with the recording, saying in his autobiography, "I've never been satisfied with the way I sang on that. I can tell from my voice I wasn't able to put all my feeling in it, because I was so scared." Stanley compliments the fiddling of sideman Les Woodie: "Listen to his fiddle hug the melody line and you can hear the worries chasing that man." The Stanley Brothers recorded the song again for King Records in 1959, adding what Ralph refers to as "that jingle, that catchy refrain," a brief trio at the end of each verse. The refrain was his brother Carter's idea, and it is this second version that years later provided the inspiration and arrangement for the Soggy Bottom Boys fictional recording session in the movie O' Brother. But Ralph never liked the change himself; when Carter passed away in 1968, Ralph returned to performing the song without the "jingle." The 1950 version was reissued in 1996 on a Sony BMG CD entitled The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers. The later King version has been reissued by Gusto Records on a 2005 CD entitled Stanley Brothers: All Time Greatest Hits. In the 1960s, the decade right after the Stanley's second recording of Man of Constant Sorrow was released, three recordings of the song appeared that demonstrated the subtle influence the duo had on American music. In 1961, Folkways Records released a recording of Daisy, Kentucky mountain singer and banjo picker Roscoe Holcomb performing the song unaccompanied, in the same old-time style of ballad singing that Ralph Stanley would remember coming from his father relaxing out on the front porch. Ironically, Holcomb had learned the song from Stanley's 1950 Columbia recording, reportedly the only song Holcomb ever recorded that he did not learn first hand. Holcomb's version of Man of Constant Sorrow has been reissued by Smithsonian Folkways on a 2003 CD entitled Roscoe Holcomb: An Untamed Sense of Control. The title comes from a description by folksinger Bob Dylan of Holcomb's high lonesome singing style. Ralph Stanley said simply of Holcomb, "you could feel the smell of woodsmoke in that voice." Both Stanley and Holcomb had been raised in the Appalachian Primitive Baptist singing tradition; in 1966, they would tour Europe, performing together on stage. Dylan, bursting on the folk music scene, also included the song on his first album, called Bob Dylan, released by Columbia records in 1962. At the end of the decade, another version of Man of Constant Sorrow was recorded that was a world apart from Holcomb's. British singer/songwriter Rod Stewart included a rocked-out version on his debut Mercury Records album, released in 1969, entitled An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down. Though the original album is out of print, Stewart's Man of Constant Sorrow has been reissued in a Polygram two CD set entitled Rod Stewart: the Mercury Anthology. The version of Man of Constant Sorrow that I used for this lesson was recorded by the bluegrass band Blue Highway for their fourth album, entitled Blue Highway, released by Skaggs Family Records in July, 1999. This was during a brief period when Tom Adams temporarily replaced the band's original banjo picker, Jason Burleson. The album featured Tim Stafford on guitar and lead vocal, Tom Adams on banjo, Shawn Lane on mandolin, Rob Ickes on dobro, and Wayne Taylor on bass. Their rendition of Man of Constant Sorrow generally follows the 1950 Stanley Brothers song structure, only adding the trio refrain at the conclusion, as a tag ending. Unlike the Blue Highway recording, the TEF lesson begins with a banjo break, and the banjo is tuned to standard open G tuning, only very loosely following Adams' intricate banjo work on the recording. Adams actually appears to my ear to be using either the old-time banjo sawmill tuning (gDGCD), or possible double C (gCGCD). This partly explains why Adams uses open roll back-up throughout the recording, since closed position vamping is difficult in these old time tunings. In the lesson tab, I have employed Ralph Stanley's technique for imitating Sawmill tuning in open G, by haveing the left hand index finger fret the 2nd string at the 1st fret whenever possible throughout. For comparison, I have included a separate transcription of Adams' banjo break in Sawmill tuning, featuring his often complex right hand picking patterns, but I am not recommending that you work on it at this time. In December of 2000, about a year and a half after the Blue Highway recording, the movie and soundtrack for O' Brother, Where Art Thou? were released, and Man of Constant Sorrow, or at least the movie's version of it. entered American pop culture, if only briefly. In addition to the performance by "The Soggy Bottom Boys," the soundtrack also included two genersally overlooked instrumental versions of the song, one by the late John Hartford on fiddle, the other by guitarist Norman Blake. I have included Hartford's brief but plaintive recording here. A year later, Tyminski would reprise his soundtrack performance on a live recording with Alison Krauss and Union Station, appearing at the Louisville Palace, Louisville, KY, in April, 2002. This recording also features Krauss on fiddle, Ron Block on banjo, and Jerry Douglas on dobro. I have listed a few YouTube versions of Man of Constant Sorrow out of the many uploaded. The first is a live tape from Bob Dylan's first television appearance in 1963; Like Roscoe Holcomb and Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan also included the Stanley Brothers among his influences. At the time of this video, he has just released his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which included his classic songs Blowin' in the Wind and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. JFK was still President, and The Times They Are A Changin' was still a year away. The second video is the scene from O' Brother of the Soggy Bottom Boys recording Man of Constant Sorrow. The third video is a live performance by country singer Travis Tritt singing Man of Constant Sorrow while accompanied by Ricky Skaggs, likely from sometime in 2001, when the two were doing some recording together. The banjo player is Jim Mills. Skaggs had begun his professional career thirty years earlier, playing the summer of 1970 with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys while still in high school. The last video brings us back to Dr. Ralph Stanley, in a concert for the Song of the Mountains PBS television series, at the Lincoln Theatre in Marion, Virginia, in January, 2010. Stanley gave up playing the three-finger style banjo on stage in 2006, due to arthritis; the banjo player in the video is Clinch Mountain Boy Mitchell Van Dyke. Just a few months before this concert, in October, 2009, Stanley published his autobiography, entitled Man of Constant Sorrow, My Life and Times. It is a good read. |
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LESSON
51 |
Notes: Now
that you have a set of Scruggs tuners on you banjo, it's time to learn
some tuner tunes. The granddaddy of them all is Earl's Breakdown, written
by Earl Scruggs, the
father of bluegrass banjo, and first recorded by Flatt & Scruggs for
Columbia Records sixty years ago. It was first issued as a single in November,
1951 (on the "flip side" of 'Tis Sweet To Be Remembered), and
later included on their first album, the Columbia Records LP Foggy
Mountain Jamboree, released in October, 1957. This historic album
also included Flint Hill Special, Foggy Mountain Special, and Shuckin'
the Corn. The fiddle player on this cut was the legendary country fiddler
Howard
"Howdy" Forrester. The mandolin work was by Everett
Lilly, who for most of his career was one half of the duo The
Lilly Brothers, West Virginia transplants who introduced bluegrass
music to a Boston audience during their long run in the 50s and 60s as
the house act at the infamous Hillbilly Ranch, which was located in Boston's
notorious Combat Zone. The great Don Stover was their banjo picker. At
the time of this 1951 recording, Scruggs had not yet installed tuners
on his banjo; he obtained the same effect by twisting the regular 2nd
string tuning peg down and then back up, an old banjo trick that takes
quite a bit of practice. By the time he recorded Flint Hill Special a
year later, he would have his first set of cam style "chokers"
installed on his banjo, finally drilling through his fancy Gibson Granada
peghead inlay in order to position them. The second MP3 on the list is a banjo duet by Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman, from their ground-breaking 1963 Elektra Records album New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass. The rights to this record were bought by Warner Brothers when the movie Deliverance was released. and issued under the new title Dueling Banjos, with the title tune added to the album. It is available from Amazon in both Audio CD and MP3 Download format. The third recording is a duet by banjo single-string pioneers Eddie Adcock and Don Reno. This was probably recorded by the pair in 1968, when they were working on their out of print Rebel Records LP The Sensational Twin Banjos Of Eddie Adcock and Don Reno, but it was not included in the album. They probably ended up with more cuts than vinyl space allowed, and if so, a signature tune originally composed by Reno's great rival would have been the one most likely to be jettisoned. Rebel Records would eventually include the cut on a large compilation collection entitled Rebel Records: 35 Years of The Best in Bluegrass. It is also available from Amazon in both Audio CD and MP3 Download format. The third MP3 is a fine recording by Alan Munde, who included the tune on his now out of print 1983 Ridge Runner LP entitled Festival Favorites, Southwest Sessions. In 1993 Rounder Records rereleased the cut on an album entitled Festival Favorites Revisited. The last MP3 is a recording by Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, included by Rounder Records on an Earl Scruggs tribute album called Foggy Mountain Special: A Bluegrass Tribute to Earl Scruggs, released in June, 2012, a little over two months after his passing. There were a number of YouTube videos that I thought were notable. The
first is a live performance by Earl Scruggs. Judging from the personnel
with him ons tage, it is probably from around 2002-2003, |
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LESSON
52 |
Notes: This week's tune is the old hymn of the Advent season, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, whose ancient lyrics are based upon the Old Testament prophesies of Isaiah 7:14 and Psalm 137. The haunting melody is French, and dates back to the 15th Century. The name Emmanuel is Hebrew for "God with us." I have set this for banjo in G minor, in a G variant tuning (gDGAD), which is just standard open G tuning, with the 2nd string dropped down to A, which is the note already set on your Scruggs/Keith tuner. I have capoed the banjo at the 2nd fret, so the actual key is A minor, and a guitar accompaniest would follow along in open position using A minor related chords. The first video is my run through of the tablature arrangement. I wasn't able to find a commercial cover by any of the major bluegrass bands, but there were several that used banjo. The first is a recording by singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, from his 2001 album Songs for Christmas, released on his own label, Asthmatic Kitty Records. He is playing clawhammer style banjo. The second MP3 is an instrumental recording by a group of Nashville bluegrass and session musicians, from a compilation country music CD called Smoky Mountain Christmas, released by Autumn records in October, 2008. The banjo picker is Craig Duncan, Bryan Sutton is on guitar, Wanda Vick Burchfield is on fiddle, and Charlie McCoy is on harmonica. The last recording is a rendition by the Punch Brothers, from a compilation album called Holidays Rule, released by Starbuck's Hear Music label in October, 2012. Okay, I can't hear Norm Pikelny's banjo at all, except perhaps rolling a little in the background somewhere around the middle, but it is still a nice performance. I have also included on Banjo Hangout MP3 upload, a somewhat strange performance by Flagstaff, Arizona member Michael Merideth, who is playing in clawhammer style. In addition to my own video, I have listed three other YouTube videos
I thought were interesting. The first is a performance by BHO member Ed
Sweeney, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, who is playing clawhammer style
in duet with Chinese musician Yang
Wei, playing a traditional Chinese stringed instrument called a pipa.
I used the melodic and rhytnmic structure of this performance as the basis
for my own three-finger style arrangement. The second video is a simple
but nice appalachian dulcimer duet by British players Theresa
Brill and Charlie Wilson, uploaded in December, 2012. The third video
is a country rock version uploaded in November, 2013, by a young band
from Manhattan, Kansas called Vineyard.
They play in a Mumford and Sons sort of style. The banjo player is just
playing a simple line with a flatpick, but it sounds good. Banjo usually
does. |
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LESSON
53 |
Notes: This week's lesson is a change of pace, a slow ballad called Bringing Mary Home. It was the signature song of bluegrass singer Bill Clifton, who first recorded it for Starday Records in September, 1963. The story goes that Starday had forwarded the lyrics, witten by country songwriters Joe Kingston and Charles "Chaw" Mank to Clifton without a melody, a not uncommon practice in the country music industry. Clifton was being backed up by the Country Gentlemen, and so John Duffey, the group's mandolin player, came up with a melody, and thus earned a share of the writers' credit. The Country Gentlemen would record the song themselves two years later, and use it as the title cut of their first album for Rebel Records, Bringing Mary Home, released in April, 1966. Now out of print, it has been re-issued as part of a larger four CD collection called The Country Gentlemen: The Early Rebel Recordings: 1962-1971. The banjo player is Eddie Adcock, who also sings baratone. Charlie Waller is on guitar, and sings the lead, John Duffey plays mandolin and sings tenor, and Ed Ferris is on bass. Only Ferris is not one of the original Country Gentlemen. He replaced Tom Gray one year earlier. This classic performance is the recording that the lesson tablature is based on. It is an excellent example of the flowing "honky tonk" style of banjo back-up. On the recording, Adcock stops playing about half way through each verse to concentrate on his harmony singing; I have inserted some appropriate phrasing in these gaps to fill out the arrangement. A year before the Gentlemen, in July, 1965, bluegrass legend Mac Wiseman recorded Clifton's hit song while on tour in Canada. He released it later that year on a now out of print Wise Records album called At The Toronto Horseshoe Club. Wiseman almost never carried his own band, but would pick up local musicians in whatever locale he was booked to play. For the Toronto sessionHe was backed up by a local bluegrass band called The Country Cousins. The banjo player was Lloyd Grant. This recording of Bringing Mary Home was recently re-released by Tee Vee Records on a CD entitled Mac Wiseman: 24 Greatest Hits. In December, 1966, the song was recorded by Starday's Country & Western star, Red Sovine, for an out of print album called The Nashville Sound Of Red Sovine. It was included on a 2004 Gusto Records Sovine CD called Phantom 309. The steel guitar player is Pete Drake . Don Reno would also record a cover of Bringing Mary Home, a live performance at The Lone Star Festival, in McKinney, Texas, in July 1971. This was one of the last appearances that would include Reno's longtime musical partner, Red Smiley. Smiley would succomb to diabetes six months later, at the age of 46. Reno's mastery of the honky tonk style is on fine display in this recording. Reno's Texas performance was released in 1977 on a now out of print Atteiram LP called Live At The Lone Star Festival. It would be re-released on a 2009 K-Tel CD called Tally Ho. The fiddler is Buck Ryan. Eddie Adcock, who played the banjo on both Bill Clifton's original recording, and the Country Gentlemen's classic version, would record Bringing Mary Home again in 2011, forty-six years later. Adcock has been performing since 1973 with his wife, Martha. Bringing Mary Home is included on their Patuxent Music CD, Many a Mile. Ironically, the bass player is Tom Gray, the original bass player for the Country Gentlemen who had left the band before the Gents' original Bringing Mary Home was recorded. John Duffey, with help from bassist T. Michael Coleman, would eventually pen a sequel to Bringing Mary Home, which he called I've Come To Take You Home. He recorded it with the Seldom Scene, the band he helped form in 1971 after leaving the Country Gentlemen. It was released on the Scene's 1994 Sugar Hill LP, Like We Used To Be. The lead singer is John Starling, Ben Eldridge is on banjo, and Mike Auldridge is on dobro. Duffey would die of a sudden heart attack two years later, in December, 1996, at the age of 62. |
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| LESSON
54 |
Notes: This week we are going to working one one of the two songs assigned for the Kids Jam at the Joe Val Memorial Bluegrass Festival, Waltz Across Texas. For the starting point, we are going to use a fine version by the Johnson Mountain Boys, from a 1988 live Rounder album called At the Old Schoolhouse. Fiddler (and now country disc-jockey) Eddie Stubbs is singing the vocal and playing the leads. The banjo back up in the tab closely follows the back up played by by JMB picker Tom Adams on the recording, but there are no banjo breaks, so I have "converted" Stubbs fiddle intro and break into banjo breaks. This song is a good exercise in slow 3/4 waltz time picking, much like Bringing Mary Home was an exercise in slow, two-step back up. I have also included an exercise to practice seversal of the standard back-up licks used here by Adams. Waltzing Across Texas was written around 1959 by country singer Ernest Tubb with his nephew, Quanah Talmadge "Billy" Tubb, but he did not record it until late in his career, in April, 1965, for Decca Records. It was first released as a single; then two years later on a now out of print album called Another Story. It was his second biggest hit behind Walking the Floor Over You. It was reissued by MCA Nashville, which owns the Decca library, on a compilation CD called Ernest Tubb: The Definitive Collection. The pedal steel player is Buddy Charleton, the lead guitarist is Leon Rhodes. I could only find one other cover of the song by a major bluegrass band, one recorded by the Osborne Brothers for Pinecastle Records in 1995, called The Osborne Brothers: Ernest Tubb Song Folio. It is available from Amazon in both Audio CD and MP3 format. Unfortunately, Sonny does not do any banjo work on this recording. I picked out three YouTube videos of Waltzing Across Texas that I thought were worth noting. The Johnson Mountain Boys are performing the song at a concert in Lucketts, Virginia, in February, 1988; this is probably a video of the performance on the record. Ernest Tubb reprises his hit in a 1968 television performance, with mostly the same personnel from the 1965 recording. The last video is a nice rendition by old-time due Annie and Mac, from Front Royal, Virginia, uploaded in November, 2013. Mac is playing banjo mostly in an old-time three finger style in this video. |
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