Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/24/2021:  21:25:35

Last cold Whiskey.

This weeks tune of the week is Paul Brown’s tune Last cold whiskey, which came to my attention through Ken Perlmans book Clawhammer banjo. It’s in a lovely D major tuning ( f#, D, F#, A, D) which with the bluesy notes dosnt sound like a major scale.
Ken states the tune was written in the 1980’s by Paul Brown, but was titled by someone who heard him play it. As far as I can see, having scoured the internet, there dosnt appear to be any recorded version of Paul playing it himself but Ken notes that Paul says it should be played at a medium pace.
From the videos and tracks I’ve found of Pauls playing, it is clear he is a master of clawhammer, 2 finger and 3 finger styles with a relaxed effortless style.

Here is what the old time parlour website says of him:

“Paul Brown practices an art of deceptive understatement. He’s never in a hurry, because he’s
already there. He has spent his entire life steeped in what is usually called old-time music, and
none of it was lost on him. This set gives you something rare and precious – Paul by himself,
serving it up, straight, no chaser. There are no frills, no light shows, no sales pitches, stated or
implied. The fireworks are all inside the music. His fiddle playing is an anthology of sly,
constantly shifting sleights of hand and mind. His banjo playing – both finger style and
clawhammer (he switches back and forth in “Round-Town Gals,” here) – is more understated
and, if anything, even more deceptively compelling. Sophisticated, precise, and elegant, it is also
intensely rhythmic and propulsive. This set is a close-up magic show. If it were a card game he
would have all your money by the end of it. Instead, you will leave richer than when you entered.
Sit down and tune in; the more you listen, the more you’ll hear. It’s the understatement of the
year.    — Tom Piazza
 
A musician since childhood, Paul Brown spent years collecting and documenting traditional music in southwestern Virginia and northwest North Carolina, particularly the stunningly rich traditions around Mount Airy in the region known as Round Peak. As a performer, a record producer, and a radio host—formerly of Mount Airy’s famous hometown station, WPAQ, and now reaching a national audience as a newscaster and reporter for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition—Paul Brown has introduced millions to the special world of Round Peak music, and helped to ensure its preservation and vitality for future generations.
Paul started picking banjo on a new Sears Silvertone when he was ten. He developed his own two- and three-finger styles, and also learned the clawhammer style. His interest, and his discovery of the Clawhammer Banjoalbums, inspired him to make frequent trips to visit as many of the older players as he could. He has visited and played music with a number of the older artists in the Southern Appalachian region.
Paul spent years learning music directly from some of the last fiddle, banjo, and guitar players to emerge before the age of radio and recordings, including Tommy Jarrell, Gilmer Woodruff, Fields Ward, Robert Sykes, Luther Davis, Verlen Clifton, and Paul Sutphin. Paul studied banjo intensively with Tommy Jarrell, and he learned much from the playing of Wade Ward. He spent considerable time with Wade’s nephew, Fields, a fine guitarist, banjo player and singer. He also played in the Smokey Valley Boys with Benton Flippen, Verlen Clifton, and Paul Sutphin. When Paul Sutphin died, Paul Brown wrote about how Sutphin influenced the musicians: “More than anything else, he would infuse the performance with focused energy, intensity and happiness that drove the rest of us to play harder and better than we thought we could.”
Paul has recorded with many of his friends including Bruce Molsky, Mike Seeger, and Tara Nevins. His most recent recordings are Way Down In North Carolina with Mike Seeger, Benton Flippen: Old Time, New Times, and Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday: The Breaking Up Christmas Story. His most recent recording, Red Clay County, features Paul’s banjo playing, fiddling, and singing, and it has received a rave review from The Old-Time Herald magazine.”

I particularly like this tune because of the bluesy feel it has to it and I prefer to play it slower than a medium pace. I also feel it needn’t be played too rigidly and is fine to stretch the length of some bars to get the swaying flow the tune cries out for.



Here I play it with nylon strings on a calfskin head:

youtu.be/iHcNeLQqFjo

And here a little faster with steel strings and a fibre skin head

youtu.be/0G0XBuFP8_M


Other versions out there are:


Banjo Ant


youtu.be/M5Bvuf-78xQ


Dave Marshal and Howard imms

youtu.be/qcM5R4TICeA

I particularly like this version:

youtu.be/_GdGEUYdOPs


If anyone has a link to Paul Brown playing this tune please post it here.

The tab I used for the tune is in Ken Perlmans book Clawhammer banjo page 87 and there is a tab on banjo hangouts storage page.

hangoutstorage.com/banjohangou...72010.pdf

janolov - Posted - 06/25/2021:  06:39:55

TRhank you for a nice TOTW! It Is a nice tune, and I do like the open D tuning. There are only a few OT tunes that use this tuning: Reuben, Peachbottom Creek (Wade Ward), Graveyard, Last Cold Whiskey, Coal Creek March (Pete Steele two-finger thumb lead), and Baptist Shout (Fred Jenkins /OT three-finger) and perhaps a few others.

I think a lot of the double D tunes can be played in open D tuning.

Edited by - janolov on 06/25/2021 06:45:31

cmic - Posted - 06/25/2021:  09:18:50

Veri nice tune. And Neill, I prefer your renditions: calm, full of feelings...

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2021:  09:59:59

Thank you Jan and Michel, it is a lovely tune and fairly easy to play

RG - Posted - 06/25/2021:  10:55:07

Paul is one of the most genuinely nice folks you will ever meet and a heckuva musician. Great TOTW and nicely played!

JanetB - Posted - 06/25/2021:  21:20:24

Nicely played, Neill. Your second choice is a good one for sure. Paul Brown is an old-time icon, still making beautiful music. Stephen Wade calls this kind of tune "lyrical." It really flows.

I modified some of Last Cold Whiskey since the original isn't yet available in this discussion thread and learning from Ken Perlman's tab served as a guide. The A and B parts aren't repeated in my mp3, played on a Mac Traynham banjo from Willis, Virginia, coincidently reminding me of the posts appearing lately about Reed Martin banjos (Mac learned how to build from him).

Last Cold Whiskey (TOTW)

 

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2021:  21:46:15

That’s a very nice version Janet with the extra notes you added gives it a bit more playfulness. I think of this tune accompanying A.A. Milne’s Pooh stick game when the the bear drops his stick in the the water to see which comes out the other side first. But let the sticks carry on down stream and watch them weave through different currents and paths formed by rocks in that shallow stream . The little slide I put in towards the end of the 2nd part of the tune is the stick having been stuck by rocks finally being sucked through a small gap between the rocks and finally continuing its journey down stream.