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ScottK - Posted - 05/29/2014: 23:33:47
Hi All,
This week’s TOTW is Clyde Davenport’s Dandy Jim. This is a quirky little tune that I learned from Lisa Ornstein a couple years ago while preparing to play for a square dance with her. This tune isn’t very commonly played in my experience and I didn’t find a lot of information about it poking around the web this evening. There’s another minstrel tune called Dandy Jim of Caroline, but this Dandy Jim is a different tune. (You can see a good video of Timothy Twiss playing Dandy Jim of Caroline here.)
Clyde’s Dandy Jim is documented in Jeff Titon’s book Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes. There Jeff says, “Although it bears the marks of African American origin, this is not the popular nineteenth-century minstrel tune “Dandy Jim of Caroline.” Its regional provenance is the Cumberland Plateau area of south-central Kentucky and north-central Tennessee.” You can view the full entry with musical notation for Clyde’s version of Dandy Jim here. You can also hear Jeff’s recording of Clyde playing Dandy Jim at Larry Warren’s excellent web page of source recordings for Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes. There’s another recording of Clyde playing Dandy Jim on the Digital Library of Appalachia. You can find a recording of Lisa Ornstein playing Dandy Jim on fiddle here.
I only found one banjo recording of Dandy Jim, by BHO’s own carlb. You can find that here. I made a recording of my banjo version this evening and posted it here.
If you want to learn more about Clyde Davenport, Jeff Titon posted a bio on the Field Recorders’ Collective web site. If you want to hear more of Clyde’s music, here are a few good options to get started with:
Clyde Davenport recordings on Digital Library of Appalachia
Clyde Davenport – Topic page on YouTube
FRC103 – Clyde Davenport, Vol. 1
FRC104 – Clyde Davenport, Vol. 2
FRC1004 – Clyde Davenport DVD
Shades of Clyde DVD from County Sales
And if you want to mess around with a few more Clyde tunes, you can check out these archived BHO TOTW threads:
TOTW 7/1/2011 – Five Miles from Town (posted by Don Borchelt)
TOTW 3/9/2012 – Big Sweet Taters in Sandy Land (posted by me)
TOTW 10/26/2012 – Polecat’s Den (posted by RG)
That’s it for tonight. Happy listening and playing!
Scott
RG - Posted - 05/30/2014: 00:12:16
Great TOTW Scott!
BTW, the Troxell Brothers version is great as well, its on their 1990 Marimac cassette "Troxsong" which is unfortunately unavailable. The liner notes read "This tune title belongs to a composition that was one of the most common tunes in the black-face minstrel repertoire prior to the Civil War. Ralph's version comes down from his grandfather Davenport, and is unrelated to the minstrel tune."
I play this tune a lot on the fiddle, along with a bunch of other Clyde tunes...I enjoy Mr. Davenport's music both on banjo and fiddle...he's a national treasure in my opinion...
twelvefret - Posted - 05/30/2014: 05:10:37
quote:
Originally posted by RG
Great TOTW Scott!
BTW, the Troxell Brothers version is great as well, its on their 1990 Marimac cassette "Troxsong" which is unfortunately unavailable. The liner notes read "This tune title belongs to a composition that was one of the most common tunes in the black-face minstrel repertoire prior to the Civil War. Ralph's version comes down from his grandfather Davenport, and is unrelated to the minstrel tune."
I play this tune a lot on the fiddle, along with a bunch of other Clyde tunes...I enjoy Mr. Davenport's music both on banjo and fiddle...he's a national treasure in my opinion...
Amen to that, Rick.
carlb - Posted - 05/30/2014: 05:17:40
I just might mention that the first part is really in 5/4 and I did write to Jeff Titon about that and he said he'd make the correction in the next edition. This first section has the three repeats of similar parts. Here's my re-write of the musical notation.
gailg64 - Posted - 05/30/2014: 08:12:56
The Troxell brothers, who were from the Cumberland Plateau, played a lot of very nice tunes, some of which you don't come across in other areas. The cassette is out of print, but examples of their music can be found on the Digital Library of Appalachia site. (recorded by Bobby Fulcher)
The banjo style was mostly 2 finger, but they also had a clawhammer sound-alike style & some memorable fandangos. Mike Seeger learned & taught one his banjo DVD set.(French Waltz--not French & not a Waltz!). There's also a video of the brothers playing fiddle & banjo together (folkstreams) where you can get a nice view of the right hand style on the banjo.
quote:
Originally posted by RG
Great TOTW Scott!
BTW, the Troxell Brothers version is great as well, its on their 1990 Marimac cassette "Troxsong" which is unfortunately unavailable. The liner notes read "This tune title belongs to a composition that was one of the most common tunes in the black-face minstrel repertoire prior to the Civil War. Ralph's version comes down from his grandfather Davenport, and is unrelated to the minstrel tune."
I play this tune a lot on the fiddle, along with a bunch of other Clyde tunes...I enjoy Mr. Davenport's music both on banjo and fiddle...he's a national treasure in my opinion...
ScottK - Posted - 05/30/2014: 13:23:39
Thanks for the comments, all.
Carl, that's cool that you figured out the first part is 5/4 and corrected the music notation. I just knew it was crooked, but never counted it out.
Thanks for the Troxell Brothers pointers, Gail. We be checking those out for sure.
Scott
ScottK - Posted - 05/30/2014: 18:23:34
Thanks J-Walk. Don't know why I missed that one when I did my search.
Scott
banjoak - Posted - 05/31/2014: 03:30:20
quote:
Originally posted by carlb
I just might mention that the first part is really in 5/4 and I did write to Jeff Titon about that and he said he'd make the correction in the next edition. This first section has the three repeats of similar parts. Here's my re-write of the musical notation.
Great tune. But 5/4? - I suppose to just make the notational math seem right (which Jeff's 2/2 also worked) - the problem is what's written doesn't represent the metric accent. of 5/4; the beats and bar don't coincide on every other measure. Alternatives might be;
Often crooked or asymmetric tunes work out to think in groups of 2's or 3's.
ScottK - Posted - 05/31/2014: 08:30:12
quote:
Originally posted by RG
BTW, the Troxell Brothers version is great as well, its on their 1990 Marimac cassette "Troxsong" which is unfortunately unavailable. The liner notes read "This tune title belongs to a composition that was one of the most common tunes in the black-face minstrel repertoire prior to the Civil War. Ralph's version comes down from his grandfather Davenport, and is unrelated to the minstrel tune."
Poking around looking for more on the Troxell Brothers led me to this archived BHO thread discussing Troxsong. Turns out mojo monk digitized and posted Troxsong and it's still up. You can find a link to it on that thread. Thanks Sean!
Scott
JanetB - Posted - 05/31/2014: 17:41:08
Thanks for an enjoyable tune, Scott. Here's my attempt, listening to the first part of Clyde Davenport's recording, where he shortened the A section.
ScottK - Posted - 05/31/2014: 19:28:47
Thanks, RG. I'll have to order that DVD. Really enjoying Troxsong.
Might pretty picking Janet! Sweet tone on that banjo, too.
Cheers, Scott
aeroweenie - Posted - 06/02/2014: 20:02:06
Nice pick Scott. I've listened to it a few times and it just doesn't go where I expect, real work will be required to learn this one!
Good job Janet!
Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 06/05/2014: 15:54:25
JanetB is always a hard act to follow, but I thought I'd take a hack at it anyway.
Have a great evening.
Lew
ScottK - Posted - 06/06/2014: 11:40:54
Nice picking, Lew. Right now it's providing the perfect backdrop for me sitting here working from home with my window open on a sunny day.
Scott
