aschweigert - Posted - 05/19/2023:  09:52:40

Hey everybody!



Some of you will recall that the clawhammer rules facebook group had a theme for their tune of the month a couple months ago that was something like tunes with city/state names in them. I failed to represent my home state of Ohio so I'm here to right that wrong.



Here's a tune that comes from Forest Pick (originally from West Portsmouth, Ohio) called "Chillicothe Beauty". It was collected by John Harrod and appears on the "Along the Ohio's Shores" compilation from the Field Recorders Collective: fieldrecorder.bandcamp.com/tra...he-beauty.



I got it from my friend Joe Burdock who has worked a lot with John Harrod. He was over in Pittsburgh calling our monthly square dance and I sat in on the fiddle workshop he taught that weekend where he shared this tune.



I just got around to arranging it for the banjo. I had to polish a couple of the fancy edges off just a teensy bit to make it work but this should be fairly true to the tune: youtu.be/qCu93RHoncU.



I don't know of many other versions...here's one from Roger Cooper: youtube.com/watch?v=QEekyt-WhNA



If anyone knows of any others let me know! I'm also attaching a tabbed out version of more or less how I hear it.



Happy Friday!

Edited by - aschweigert on 05/19/2023 15:00:21

VIDEO: Chillicothe Beauty - Old-time Clawhammer Banjo
(click to view)

Chillicothe Beauty - Tab

JanetB - Posted - 05/20/2023:  17:55:10

A beautiful choice from a unique source, new for me.  I have Field Recorders Collective CDs, but this is the first I've learned of one from the Ohio's shores.  Have you been to Chillicothe?  The CDs I have are from Kentucky.  

Your lovely recording, Adam, felt daunting for me to try, but your tab is reasonable and doable.  I went ahead (as usual) and went to the original source -- Forest Pick -- and came up with an arrangement I like.  The hardest part is in the 13th and 14th measures, with their drop-thumbs, pull-offs and hammer-ons, all in a row.  In the 12th and 16th measures I use my thumb in an unusual way since the melody note was an open 5th string, so I did that instead of fretting the 5th fret of the first string. 

Chillicothe Beauty (TOTW)

Chillicothe (CH) tab

aschweigert - Posted - 05/20/2023:  21:04:34

It's been a while now but I actually have been to Chillicothe! Post-colonization, it was the first capital of Ohio before it moved to Columbus, and the capital of the Northwest Territory before that, and it has a long, rich history pre- european colonization as a center for the Hopewell and Shawnee.

Here are some photos of the town from a couple years ago: flickr.com/photos/aschweigert/...239804504.

I like the use of the fifth string in your arrangement! There are definitely some tricky bits to the tune but I think it's quite lovely and hope more folks pick it up!