Banjo Hangout Top 100 Clawhammer And Old-time Songs

Tunaday #106 - In G Modal-f (fDGCD).

This version of Wolf Creek is from Harvey "Pappy" Taylor (b.1894), recorded in 1974. Slowed down from the original, it makes a pretty piece in fDGCD tuning. DOI stands for Dear Old Illinois, a compilation of songs and fiddle tunes by Garry and Steve Harrison and Jo Burgess. Wolf Creek is the old-time Tune of the Week for 3/13/20.

My friends Kent McDaniel and Tawl Paul Fredrick made a CD of Paul singing mostly blues with rock band backup. They asked me to provide some banjo licks for this Muddy Waters song. The CD is available on bandcamp with Tawl Paul after the slash.

A tune I learned while playing banjo to Melvin Wine's fiddling. aDAde

Tunaday #100 - In G Modal-f (fDGCD).

Played in the key of A using the "John Brown's Dream" or Low Bass tuning--a A(low) A C# E. Banjo is a Fairbanks Whyte Laydie #2.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 12/14/18, this sentimental song plays out in clawhammer rather than the Scruggs picking style I originally learned it in.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, Sweet Nell is the title name of a CD by a Washington-based group who wrote the tunes. The tune is named for Nell, the daughter of Paul Newman, partners in a charity-based organic snack company. It's a sweet tune.

Frosty Morn is the old-time Tune of the Week, 8/24/18. Related to Cold Frosty Morning in some of its melody and chordal movement, here's a medley of the two. The first was learned from the guitar flat-picking of Doc Watson, who I idolize. The second was learned from Miles Krassen's Clawhammer Banjo book. He used Henry Reed's version which he had published previously in his Appalachia Fiddle book. Sawmill tuning, playing on my Doc's Banjo.

This is the Luther Davis version of Sail Away Ladies, or at least my interpretation of it. Presented for Tune Of The Week for August 2nd, 2018. In any case a fine tune!

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/8/18, Trouble on My Mind was recorded by Kentucky fiddler John Salyer's sons at home. Salyer never recorded commercially, but was an excellent fiddler. This tune is crooked in the last measure when it repeats and is unusual in having six measures in the A part and eight in the B part.

In gCGce. I've been obsessed with this tune played on the banjo, since playing with my friend Barbara last summer. I have played the tune on the fiddle, for years, but not on the banjo. Influenced by the recording of the Mississippi Possum Hunters https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/last-shot-got-him

A multitrack recording using a Tascam multitrack recorder, a very slow, lazy and very simplified version of Larry Unger's tune "Elkins." Enoch 12" Tradesman (stuffed with a small towel at neck joint) playing lead in Double D, Martin HD-28 guitar on rhythm, Cloud Nine Marimbula on bass (use headphones/earbuds/other good speakers to pick up the sound), H. Luger CV-300 fiddle also playing some lead. This is certainly not a note-for-note accurate banjo version of Larry Unger's excellent tune, nor as good a version as Jason White's on YouTube (which is outstanding as he compares it being played on five different banjos), but I have attempted to capture much of the essence of the tune as I hear it.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 4/13/18, Snake wrote this tune during a recording session and it was was recorded and kept for posterity with this title that was reminiscent of his experience as a child of being knocked down by an angry hornet.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, March 23, 2018. Susannah Gal goes by other titles. This one comes from the duet CD of Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham, both from the Round Peak, NC region. Their B part is unique, but they play it together and so it sounds great. Fred adds slides which I attempted to include, too. They must have had lots of fun playing together!

Made this banjo duet recording with Ed Britt back in November, 2014. We still play it when we go busking in Harvard Square.

Banjo tuned aDADE.

A good ol' Oscar Wright tune that I first learned from Miles Krassen's Clawhammer Banjo book, but I have set here in the Half Shaved tuning (f#DADE).