Banjo Hangout Top 100 Old Time Songs

Been awhile since I've posted something. Composed this in CH but liked the way it sounded fingerpicked better. In Double C.

Wake Up Sal and Blow Out the Light

Key of G. Learned from an album in the sixties by "We Five," as I recall, but with variations added.

Key of G. Learned from an album in the sixties by "We Five," as I recall, but with variations added.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/15/15. This comes from Samuel Bayard's Hill Country Tunes collection (link in TOTW: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/303774). My first effort to play Sweet Ellen was in open G tuning with a raised 5th string. This version is in double C tuning (capo 2 for its original key of D). It's really a sweet tune and I'm interested in anything from Samuel Bayard's collections. I'll never know if my father knew Sam Bayard -- same college, about the same time, same major....We all find personal connections in this old-time musical journey and that's one of mine.

aDAde - derived from Melvin Wine's fiddling. Not exactly as in my Banjo Newsletter tab of 31 years ago (February, 1984).

Tune in D related to The Boys of Bluehill. Recorded for the 5/1/15 old-time tune of the week.

A second tune I've learned from the playing of Missouri fiddler Lonnie Robertson (1908 - 1981). Old Joe was also played on the Opry and possibly has some links (in its "odd metric patterns") to a minstrel tune of the same name.

Banjo plays Goin down to Cairo

Porch playing. One take. A few things to still work on, but I'm happy with the way it's coming along.

From Pete Seeger. More of a fragment than a song. Child Ballad 74. Jean Ritchie sings a more complete version of the story. Sawmill tuning, down from G to F. Two-finger index-lead. Still learning this style.

AKA Red Rocking Chair, AKA Red Apple Juice. Sawmill tuning (gDGCD), played in D. Banjo is down two frets. Learned this from Dock Boggs. Also done by Roscoe Holcomb and one version from Charlie Monroe, which features a guitar and mandolin playing the melody in unison.

This style of clawhammer I really only use on stage. Very little melody is played except in the break. I got this song from my dad, who got it from my grandma, who probably got it from the Osborne Brothers.

The Virginia Reel

It's interesting that William Sydney Mount, the famous painter of The Banjo Player, had in his notes and diary this version of Oh Susannah in 1848, the same year that Stephen Foster published the song, too. I'm enjoying studying the great painter who was also a dedicated fiddler.