Bill Rogers - Posted - 02/07/2025:  15:35:04

This one is best known as a folk favorite from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and is rarely played as an instrumental. Woody Guthrie played it, combined with Rye Straw, as a fiddle tune. Woody also sang the song with a guitar. Its history is cloudy; Guthrie said at one point that his father sang a version, and that he’d heard it for years.  The Lomaxes said Woody learned it from a Black shoeshine boy in his hometown of Okemah, OK. Fiddlin’ John Carson recorded a version in the mid-1920s that leans more towards “Reuben” than Guthrie’s. “900 Miles” is clearly from the “Reuben” family of tunes and songs, but is set in minor and has a more complex melody than “Reuben.”

There are myriad recordings of the song on YouTube, including ones by Bing Crosby, Alan Arkin and Kenny Ball as well as several 60s folkies and the Norman Luboff Choir (among several choral arrangements). Woody’s is the one of two instrumental versions I found. The tune sets nicely in Gm tuning on the banjo, capoing as needed if you sing it. I think it could also be played out of Cm in Double-C tuning or in open Cm. Here are YouTube links to several recordings of the song on YouTube, starting with Woody’s fiddle version and one with Pete Seeger playing it on mandolin. (Woody’s fiddle version is backed by Cisco Houston on Guitar and Pete chording mandolin.) You can find many others with a YouTube search. Here are links to Woody’s fiddle version and Seeger’s with mandolin, along with several accompanying the song with banjo.  If you know of or run across a good banjo or other instrumental version, please post a link. As usual, comments, corrections and additions are welcome.

Woody Guthrie: youtube.com/watch?v=Q5k78NrCKSc

Pete Seeger (Mike Seeger: Guitar).youtube.com/watch?v=Y9sFgK1O93A

Steven De Poorter:  youtube.com/watch?v=-ZPQ3GGMxQY

Kelley Smith: youtube.com/watch?v=hxXQxpOdgQM

Sedo Garcia: youtube.com/watch?v=ohB3O0EUZYw. (Fiddle and banjo; well done)

Edited by - Bill Rogers on 02/07/2025 16:17:32

janolov - Posted - 02/09/2025:  08:24:23

Thanks for a really good song!

I had almost forgotten it. I used to play it in the late 70's and early 80's with a guitar playing and singing friend. I think we learned it from an song book. The first attempt was to play and sing it in G minor but the high parts of the melody was too high, so we went on with D minor and D minor tuning (aDFAD). I played it in Seeger's basic strum with a thumb lead solo. I was also trying some Scruggs style and I remember that I was trying to decipher Eric Weissberg's version but gave up.

JanetB - Posted - 02/09/2025:  23:03:49

A rich TOTW to share, Bill.  I liked the feeling and banjo solo of Kelley Smith.  Upon searching for her source, Barbara Dane, I learned of this influential folk and blues singer as well as activist, who passed away last October at age 97 years old.  Her singing and guitar are the inspiration for this arrangement.  It begins with the melody of her vocals, followed by the inspiration of her guitar solo, using the Gm tuning you recommended, Bill.

Edited by - JanetB on 02/09/2025 23:07:20

900 Miles

900 Miles (CH) tab

Bill Rogers - Posted - 02/09/2025:  23:27:48

Very nice, Janet. It’s definitely a more challenging melody than its close relative and likely antecedent, “Reuben.”

@JanetB

Tuedelband - Posted - 02/10/2025:  02:34:47

Thank you Bill Rogers,

Beautiful song with history, no wonder there are so many versions.

I would like to add: John Carson -I'm Nine Hundred Miles From Home, from 1924.

Janet, your playing has enchanted me Thank you.

Jack Baker - Posted - 02/10/2025:  15:51:03

Wonderful Janet,

Is is necessary to even use a V chord in this arrangement?....Jack

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Originally posted by JanetB

A rich TOTW to share, Bill.  I liked the feeling and banjo solo of Kelley Smith.  Upon searching for her source, Barbara Dane, I learned of this influential folk and blues singer as well as activist, who passed away last October at age 97 years old.  Her singing and guitar are the inspiration for this arrangement.  It begins with the melody of her vocals, followed by the inspiration of her guitar solo, using the Gm tuning you recommended, Bill.

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Jack Baker - Posted - 02/10/2025:  16:52:18

Hi Janet,

Barbara came to Izzy Young's Folklore Center in the early 70s, at least I think it was then. She was unbelievable and so talented. I can't remember if She sang this song at that time but I'm sure She must have.



I have actually heard people play the entire piece with just one chord, usually an Aminor-- E7 but Gminor with a D7 works just as well I think....Thank you again for you beautiful Tab Janet....Jack

Edited by - Jack Baker on 02/10/2025 16:53:43

JanetB - Posted - 02/10/2025:  17:56:56

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack Baker

Wonderful Janet,

Is is necessary to even use a V chord in this arrangement?....Jack

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Thanks, Jack.  I'm going to wish I tried the Woody Guthrie fiddle version after tackling your question!

Yours is a simple question with a complex answer. Bottom line, I like hearing the V chord, but also a minor chord may work into the Barbara Dane version. I'll need more time to choose chords for the tab I made. Barbara Dane sang in Fm and my tab is a whole step higher, but I don't have the chords completely yet. I do hear your V chord, but others may play a minor chord there or make no change at all, and yet others stay on the "I" chord where I would change to the "V" chord.  And sometimes a minor chord fits in quite nicely. So, at the moment it's confusing!

Here's one person's interpretation that doesn't use the V chord at all:  ozbcoz.com chords.  Here's one closer to what I hear: Ultimate-Guitar.Com.  This next site plays along with Barbara Dane and posts the chords, if you can keep up with the changes (as the software's metronome isn't responsive and perhaps requires a subscription), and it's also a bit confusing to follow because it moves from a major to a minor (F to Fm, when I only hear the Fm):  ChordU.com.  Sorry if this doesn't help yet  to answer your question.  I'll ponder it more later as time opens up.

Jack Baker - Posted - 02/10/2025:  20:19:23

Ah ok,
Thanks Janet. I'll try using those chords--they sound right...jack

writerrad - Posted - 02/11/2025:  06:18:48

She lived in Oakland California at the time.  For a while she and Irwin lived in the same apartment building on Lakeshore Drive in Oakland as I did in the late 70s 1980.

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Originally posted by Jack Baker

Hi Janet,

Barbara came to Izzy Young's Folklore Center in the early 70s, at least I think it was then. She was unbelievable and so talented. I can't remember if She sang this song at that time but I'm sure She must have.



I have actually heard people play the entire piece with just one chord, usually an Aminor-- E7 but Gminor with a D7 works just as well I think....Thank you again for you beautiful Tab Janet....Jack

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writerrad - Posted - 02/11/2025:  06:35:34

quote:

There  are or at least there were some banjo historians especially 30 years ago who might have thought that the basic tune involved in a more major pitching might have been one of the most widely played banjo tune or an original banjo tune especially as the equivalent of the open D tuning was much more popular for early banjo playing both folk and pop music than it is today.   What many of us call that "the Reuben Tuning"  has to be older than the frequency of railroad trains.

Most of the popular music and country versions of this tune that  made it massively popular and essentially a standard in country music and acoustic folk come from the simple banjo accompanied version of the tune that the GREAT HEDY WEST recorded on her first Vanguard Album in 1963 youtube.com/watch?v=rwnNdqpCF8Qs  accompanying herself on the banjo.  I think that was first printed and published in Sing Out right about that time. 

I dont think Hedy's recording or performance were that special (any note she played or sung is special to me but the world differs) but that it was a basic published arrangement of the song that got picked up and disseminated very quickly by folk, country, and even pop music performers.

It had a big impact in shifting the identity of the song to 500 or 100 Miles, from Reuben which used to be more well known especially among Black or white traditional players.

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

This one is best known as a folk favorite from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and is rarely played as an instrumental. Woody Guthrie played it, combined with Rye Straw, as a fiddle tune. Woody also sang the song with a guitar. Its history is cloudy; Guthrie said at one point that his father sang a version, and that he’d heard it for years.  The Lomaxes said Woody learned it from a Black shoeshine boy in his hometown of Okemah, OK. Fiddlin’ John Carson recorded a version in the mid-1920s that leans more towards “Reuben” than Guthrie’s. “900 Miles” is clearly from the “Reuben” family of tunes and songs, but is set in minor and has a more complex melody than “Reuben.”

There are myriad recordings of the song on YouTube, including ones by Bing Crosby, Alan Arkin and Kenny Ball as well as several 60s folkies and the Norman Luboff Choir (among several choral arrangements). Woody’s is the one of two instrumental versions I found. The tune sets nicely in Gm tuning on the banjo, capoing as needed if you sing it. I think it could also be played out of Cm in Double-C tuning or in open Cm. Here are YouTube links to several recordings of the song on YouTube, starting with Woody’s fiddle version and one with Pete Seeger playing it on mandolin. (Woody’s fiddle version is backed by Cisco Houston on Guitar and Pete chording mandolin.) You can find many others with a YouTube search. Here are links to Woody’s fiddle version and Seeger’s with mandolin, along with several accompanying the song with banjo.  If you know of or run across a good banjo or other instrumental version, please post a link. As usual, comments, corrections and additions are welcome.

Woody Guthrie: youtube.com/watch?v=Q5k78NrCKSc

Pete Seeger (Mike Seeger: Guitar).youtube.com/watch?v=Y9sFgK1O93A

Steven De Poorter:  youtube.com/watch?v=-ZPQ3GGMxQY

Kelley Smith: youtube.com/watch?v=hxXQxpOdgQM

Sedo Garcia: youtube.com/watch?v=ohB3O0EUZYw. (Fiddle and banjo; well done)

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