Mtngoat - Posted - 08/20/2021:  03:11:51

TOTW  8-20-21 – Tommy Jarrell’s Boll Weevil

I’ve chosen Tommy Jarrell’s version of Boll Weevil for this installment of TOTW.  The Boll Weevil is a Mexican beetle with an affinity for cotton which, after making its first appearance in Texas in 1892, worked its way across the South and shattered the region’s rural agriculture economy.   Jarrell’s version is one of several different songs documenting the social and cultural disruption associated with the weevil infestation.  

Patrick Blackman in his Murder Ballad Monday Blog says “The Boll Weevil song group almost certainly originated in black America, but we have no definitive first source.   Jarrell (1901-1985) said he learned the tune from an African-American woman who performed in a troupe that passed through his town. 

Stephanie Hall writes in The Life and Times of the Boll Weevil that “Songs about the boll weevil often take the form of an interaction between the insect and the farmer.”  Jarrell’s version conforms to this pattern.

Boll Weevil songs are not as popular today as they were during the first half of the twentieth century.  It seems that as farmers learned to control the bug, the pestilence faded from memory, and the songs lost relevance for younger generations of southerners.

The tune has a healthy internet presence.   Some fine online performances are linked below.

Here’s a 1971 solo recording of Jarrell on fiddle and vocals:    youtube.com/watch?v=1e56j2jDGHw

Here’s a 1984 recording of Jarrell on fiddle accompanied by banjo and guitar:

fieldrecorder.bandcamp.com/tra...-weevil-2

Here’s another fiddle, banjo, and guitar version:  soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/...e-gerrard

Here’s a fiddle/banjo duet:  youtube.com/watch?v=isUDQyGSAZw

Here’s another fiddle/banjo duet:  brooksbanjos.com/sounds/boll-weevil

Here’s a banjo/harmonica duet:  youtube.com/watch?v=ams6Kp5lpsw

Here’s a progressive bluegrass band version:  youtube.com/watch?v=HTZdoye0rqg

Here’s a banjo solo on a vintage instrument: m.facebook.com/mickbillingsley...ed_videos

And Josh Turknett performs this gourd banjo version as part of his Brainjo project:   youtube.com/watch?v=o5XrHtEwf6A

Josh kindly permitted me to post his tab for the tune here.     

Viewers are encouraged to post observations, opinions, performances, and tabs contributing to this thread.                                                                             

Edited by - Mtngoat on 08/20/2021 03:23:46

Boll Weevil USDA Photo

Boll Weevil Tab

RG - Posted - 08/20/2021:  10:28:47

Great TOTW!!!

JeroenJ - Posted - 08/21/2021:  05:18:21

Usually I just don't have enough time to learn a clean version of the totw and post it. This time I am sure I will not have enough time, so my addition is a quick and very dirty version of Boll Weevil on a Temlett Ajax 7 tot 6 string converted banjo. It's no use anyway to try a clean version on that: It has a neck angle so that the 6th (!) string is comfortably not over the fingerboard and tuning it is impossible. The pegs are either too tight or too loose.

Thank you mtngoat for the groovy TOTW!



I hope others will post versions too because I think that is what the TOTW is supposed to be for.



banjohangout.org/myhangout/med...archived=

Edited by - JeroenJ on 08/21/2021 05:28:53

Mtngoat - Posted - 08/21/2021:  06:05:53

JeroenJ,

Evidently I checked in 6 minutes after you posted. Wow! I love it. You say it is a quick and dirty version but to my ear it sounds authentic and very much like what one used to hear in the community I come from. It has character.

And all of that music was made on homemade or inexpensive mass produced instruments not the custom beauties you see at festivals nowadays.

I too would like to see more active participation in TOTW. But I usually don't post performances so I guess I'm also part of the problem.

Thanks for the contribution.

Lobstertrician - Posted - 08/21/2021:  17:56:29

Great song, thanks mtngoat, and one of only two tunes in that tuning that I have/play. Seems that gCGCD# is a little thin on the ground!

JanetB - Posted - 08/21/2021:  20:59:46

Thanks, Mtngoat and Lobstertrican, for your outstanding contributions! I'll work on an arrangement this week, but certainly like the setting and tuning of Josh Turknett's version. Josh has been an unending source of tunes and instructions for years with his Brainjo site.  I have yet to compare Raleigh and Spencer with Boll Weevil, but hear similarities..



In the meantime, allow me to share the incredible work of award-winning Jake Blount from his new CD Spider Tales.  In the liner notes he states Tommy Jarrell "learned this song from a Black woman backstage at a music festival..."  Who she was remains a mystery.  Jake has a wonderful and winning way of expressing his musical prowess, whether on banjo or fiddle.

JanetB - Posted - 08/22/2021:  07:32:37

With apologies for mixing up JeroenJ from the Netherlands with Lobstertrican , I was meaning to compliment Jeroen for his mp3 contribution. Having tried to learn each TOTW for a decade now, I appreciate your effort and also hope that others give a new tune a try. There is much to be learned, and in my case, forgotten, :) but the effort and result have been quite rewarding.

With that said, and hopefully apologies accepted, I have begun arranging Boll Weevil, using a tuning like the one I used with Raleigh and Spencer. The tunes have a similar beginning.

Lobstertrician - Posted - 08/22/2021:  16:28:52

Well I guess as Janet has already thanked me for my contribution, I may as well make one! I'm fairly new to clawhammer, and even newer to fretless, but I think this tune is well suited to the low and mellow tones. Tuned to: dGDGA#

(It wasn't "outstanding", but it was outstanding, but it no longer is).

banjohangout.org/forum/attachm...eID=43736

Edited by - Lobstertrician on 08/22/2021 16:30:58

Mtngoat - Posted - 08/22/2021:  17:29:51

Lobstertrician,

Thanks for posting a great performance! I'm curious in that you say you are playing a fretless pumpkin banjo. Is it something you constructed or purchased? Can you post a photo?

JanetB - Posted - 08/22/2021:  17:31:14

Thank you, Mr. Lobster. You did a fine job on that mellow gourd banjo. The above link would not load for me, so here is a link that should work. I'm not sure you posted your MP3s here before, but you scroll down while you're posting and you'll see the word "attachments."  You can pick from your MP3s or other formats to post what you have already uploaded on your homepage. Boll Weevil

Lobstertrician - Posted - 08/23/2021:  01:52:46

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mtngoat

Lobstertrician,



Thanks for posting a great performance! I'm curious in that you say you are playing a fretless pumpkin banjo. Is it something you constructed or purchased? Can you post a photo?

---

Actually, I've just planted some bottle gourd seeds (it's nearly spring here downunder) with a dream of maybe trying to make something rough in the future, but no: this beauty is all the way from Jeffrey Menzies.

Lobstertrician - Posted - 08/23/2021:  01:54:54

quote:

---

Originally posted by JanetB

Thank you, Mr. Lobster. You did a fine job on that mellow gourd banjo. The above link would not load for me...

---

I thought my link looked wrong!  Thanks for that Janet. I'll hopefully get it right next time.

JanetB - Posted - 08/23/2021:  10:40:26

After comparing Raleigh and Spencer, arranged for a 7/26/19 TOTW via Tommy Jarrell, I decided that the similarity warranted an attempt to try the same tuning I'd used before, and it seems to work for Boll Weevil. The tuning is called a D tuning variant -- aDF#AD. Josh Turknett used a minor tuning which gives it a minor and sad flavor. The tuning I used gives it a bluesy flavor. Insect pests like boll weevils would have made any farmer feel sad and blue. These days I've heard the locusts are still crop destroyers. Maybe we need a locust title for a tune....



Listening to the fiddling of Tommy and then to Jake Blount gave my arrangement some flare the second time through when I attempt Jake's solo. I play it three times through in the mp3 with the first and third being Tommy's solo.

Edited by - JanetB on 08/23/2021 10:41:06

Boll Weevil (TOTW)

Boll Weevil (CH) tab

Raleigh and Spencer (TOTW)

Raleigh and Spencer (CH) tab

Mtngoat - Posted - 08/23/2021:  17:08:33

Lobstertrician,

That's a good looking banjo for sure.   Here's one I constructed.  It's pretty much a family affair as my mother grew the gourd, the skin head was courtesy of my nephew's winter deer hunt, and the neck was a board cut by my father and cured in his barn for 30 years.   I carved the neck using hand tools and tanned the deer skin  using an online recipe.   I'm not much of a craftsman but it plays reasonably well and I use it at reenactments and Founder's Day festivals.

You should have no problems building your own.  Have fun with it.