Lew H - Posted - 12/14/2018:  06:18:31

The Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor, a nostalgic ode to preindustrial times, was written by William Hill in 1930.  It’s a sweet tune and fun to play.  Today, it is more popular in bluegrass as an instrumental tune than in any form in oldtime circles.  I found many bluegrass versions on the Hangout, but no oldtime examples—but I might have missed some because of the variations people use in naming this tune. I found only a few clawhammer videos of the tune on youtube.  

I have vague childhood memories of The Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor—so vague that I remember the melody but little of the lyrics and nothing of the singers or musical genres. Perhaps I heard my mother sang it and also heard it on the radio.  I first learned to play it on banjo from a bluegrass picker at a Halloween party in Memphis. He played it in the key of G.  Recently I picked up a second version from my bluegrass buddy, Dennis Leitner, who plays it in the key of C but in G tuning. 

Everybody and their dog seems to have recorded The Old Spinning Wheel.  Youtube has it in many genres and locations. The tune holds up well and remains interesting under several different treatments!

Original big band recording— Ray Noble and his orchestra

Bluegrass guitar and mando—Charlie Waller and Randally Hylton

Late BHO bluegrass regular, Dave Hum

Bluegrass banjo Raymond Fairchild

Country--Slim Whitman

And some old time versions:

Owen and Alison on  hammered dulcimer

From Clifftop  Charlie Walden & Doug Smith

Clawhammer banjo version Annie and Mac. 

I claw it here in both of the versions I learned.  Since both are in open G tuning, I can modulate between the two in the video.  I start in the key of C, modulate to G, then back to C again.  You can pick one or the other version--or both--if you like. 

Edited by - Lew H on 12/14/2018 06:41:02

VIDEO: The old spinning wheel in the parlor
(click to view)

 

R Buck - Posted - 12/14/2018:  07:17:30

That video with Charlie and Doug has a couple other good friends in it too, Bob Hill and Wayne Erbsen. Nice job there. I learned this tune, on stage, in a park on the 4th of July many years ago.  The band I have joined that spring had been together 20+ years and constantly pulled out new tunes and songs. It is a dandy that still pleases  me to play occasionally a quarter century later.

Edited by - R Buck on 12/14/2018 07:20:55

cb56 - Posted - 12/14/2018:  11:02:21

Nice! Played this in our ukulele group for awhile.
Hey is Makanda still the hot spot for old hippies? ;-)

Lew H - Posted - 12/14/2018:  13:44:29

cb56 You bet it is! But I'm out on the rural route, not "downtown." It's also a hotspot for total solar eclipses. One came NW to SE recently, and in a few years another will pass SW to NE. Their paths make a big X right over our little town, so X marks the spot!

NealR - Posted - 12/14/2018:  14:12:34

Hi Lew,
I loved the way you played that!

cb56 - Posted - 12/14/2018:  14:17:12

A long time ago I recorded at a studio there called "smokehouse" 'nuff said.

I was living in Taylorville, Illinois during that eclipse so we had the total eclipse too but I think for less time than you. I remember lot's of people heading to Carbondale.
Just recently moved to southern Missouri probably directly west from you a few hundred miles.

I'm surprised to find out how few musicians here are into the old time traditional folk music. If you bring a banjo or dobro to a jam they expect bluegrass. Nothing wrong with that, I'm just not a die hard bluegrasser. They have a "Mountain Music" festival about 40 miles east of me in Ironton Mo. in may and October. Every Friday in between the festivals they have pickin' on the square jam sessions. Last summer I was the only one who showed up with a banjo (clawhammer). Everybody else played guitar and sang old Willie Nelson tunes. ( again nothing wrong with that). I'd play Jesse James, Oh Suzzana, Tom Dooley, Fireball Mail, Wildwood Flower etc... and they looked at me like I was from another planet! Still invited me back though.

Lew H - Posted - 12/14/2018:  15:02:49

cb56 I'm glad that you get to jam regularly. I go to a bluegrass jam and an old-time jam every week, but here too, there are only a few old-time pickers.

yeoldbanjoguy - Posted - 12/14/2018:  15:34:57

Nice job lew. Love the way you play that

Bruce

JanetB - Posted - 12/14/2018:  17:03:45

Thanks, Lew, for picking a sweet and sentimental tune, "spinning dreams of the long, long ago."  Your modulating performance is inspiring.  I hope others give it a try.  The photo is of a spinner at the living museum of Gold Trader Flat in Forbestown, California -- my favorite gig three times a year.  Usually she and her llama are outside.  On this day she spun in the parlor.

Old Spinning Wheel (TOTW)

Old Spinning Wheel (CH) tab with modulation

hendrid - Posted - 12/14/2018:  18:14:56

Some abc and words for what it is worth
OLD SPINNING WHEEL D
FG ||: A2 fd A2 FAG E5 | EF G2 ec |
A2 GA F4 FG | A2 fd A2 F A G E5 EF |
G2 ed A2 GE D3 | d d d | d d c d | e d c B |
B2 A4 FG | A A A A | B A F D | E2 E2 E2 FG
A2 fe A2 FA | G E5 EF | G2 ec | [1 A2 FE |
D4 FG :|| [2 A2 B c | d4 ||
Covered with dust and forgotten
Like the face up-on the wall
The one souvenir of the days gone by
I treasure, most of all
 
There's an old spinning wheel in the parlour
Spinning dreams of a long, long, ago
Spinning dreams of an old-fashioned garden
And a maid with her old-fashioned beau
 
Sometimes it seems that I can hear her in the twilight
At the organ softly singing "Old Black Joe."
There's an old spinning wheel in the parlor
Spinning dreams of the long, long ago.
 
Turn back the years of my childhood
As you turn, old spinning wheel.
Just show me a lane with a barefoot boy,
As shadows softly steal

Lew H - Posted - 12/14/2018:  19:37:35

hendrid Don, Thanks for those lyrics. Do you think we are distant kin?

hendrid - Posted - 12/14/2018:  20:30:15

Hi Lew. Possible. My 1900 or so, plus or minus roots are out of Georgia, Mississippi and southwest Arkansas after they migrated south from the northeast. Don

mjbrennan - Posted - 12/15/2018:  15:10:10

What lovely music. Super playing. Thank you all for your contributions, especially the tab.
Good wishes to all,
Michael.

banjoflatpkr - Posted - 12/15/2018:  17:58:59

Great playing Lew. Can’t get any better than that.
Jim

Califiddler - Posted - 12/16/2018:  08:56:01

Vassar Clements said that this was the first tune that he learned to play on fiddle.