Jim_VA - Posted - 09/12/2025:  09:30:50

Let’s do a southern tune this time, specifically a southern Illinois tune! This week’s tune is “Walk Old Shoe, Heel Come A Draggin’” which was collected by Garry Harrison from the Illinois fiddler Pauline McGinness (1913-1991). Genevieve Koester, Garry’s daughter, tells a delightful story of Garry collecting the tune, and then she provides a great solo fiddle version of the tune in this YouTube clip.  I enjoy playing the tune in jam sessions, and it seems to be an easy one to pick up on the fly. In the B part, I think a quick G chord in the second measure sounds good, and that is not obvious in the solo fiddle recording. I have not worked out an up the neck variation, but that shouldn’t be hard to figure out. My banjo tuning is aDADE.

Sting band recording: Volo Bogtrotters

Sheet music:  Traditional Tune Archive

VIDEO: Walk Old Shoe, Heel Come A Draggin'
(click to view)

 

banjered - Posted - 09/12/2025:  17:30:53

Traditional Tune Archive  –   Damn! Another site demanding to track me in perpetuity and spam me to death! No thanks! banjered

Edited by - banjered on 09/12/2025 17:32:23

ndlxs - Posted - 09/13/2025:  05:32:28

Nice tune! I like these arpeggio tunes; ones you can play by ear without too much thought. I as (still new, 9 years) fiddler also, I like tunes that goes all of the way down to the low string on the fiddle that have to be played higher on the banjo. That is when I want an extra low string on the banjo. I know they can be purchased with an extra string, but I have never seen one in the wild here in California.

banjered - Posted - 09/13/2025:  08:17:12

Andy, I find those fiddle tunes that drop on down to the low G string on the fiddle especially challenging in coming up with a banjo rendition that doesn't sound jarring. I am at the point of saying that a good fiddle tune does not automatically translate to a good banjo tune, but perhaps that is just an excuse for my being too incompetent to "rise to the occasion." A new tune like "Little Pine Siskin" is a pretty nice fiddle tune but so far I haven't found a way to play along with it on the banjo that sounds at least ok. "Henry Kings Reel" is another one. Even Dan Levenson said he thought HKR was a good fiddle tune but not a very friendly banjo tune. The "A" part is the challenge but the "B" part is easy. Going up on "Possum Up a Gum Stump" is the only drop G tune that sound OK with the banjo going up as the tune goes down, to my ears anyway. So I am wondering how other banjo players deal with drop-down-to-G fiddle tunes? banjered

ndlxs - Posted - 09/13/2025:  08:24:32

I had not heard Henry Kings Reel before; I just learned Possum Up a Gum Stump on fiddle, and those two would go together nicely.

Fiddle is a rather all consuming master; my banjo skills have been getting rusty.

Regarding the low fiddle parts; it could work good, in that when the fiddle goes low, the banjo goes high and vice versa. Probably depends on the fiddler and the banjo player.

ndlxs - Posted - 09/13/2025:  08:27:40

The other alternative is to put the low G fiddle tunes in the key of D, which while making fiddlers mad, should sound good on banjo with the low D.

banjered - Posted - 09/13/2025:  11:05:44

Andy, do you mean tuning the banjo to DF#AD or DADE? I haven't tried the DF#AD for fiddle tunes, anyone? banjered

RG - Posted - 09/13/2025:  11:18:40

That's a real nice tune and nicely played Jim!

JanetB - Posted - 09/13/2025:  15:03:53

Nice choice, nice playing Jim.  The discussion above about the low note was the first issue I came across trying to learn it.  I settled for playing the lowest open string note twice and also arranged the A part up-the-neck where I could hit the first low note on the third string. As you said, Jim, an up-the-neck part worked nicely, at least for the A part.

I looked at the DOI (Dear Old Illinois) notation in the book and listened first to Charlie Walden and then to Gaye Harrison on a Get Up in the Cool podcast.  If you go to about 11 minutes in the podcast you'll hear Gaye speak about Garry Harrison's tune collecting and then she and Cameron DeWhitt play the tune at 14:50.  Gaye says very few women fiddlers were recorded for DOI, so this tune caught her attention.  She says there were no written notes regarding the title -- just speculation.

Here's a tab found in the BHO Tab Library.

Walk Old Shoe, Heel Come A'Draggin' (DOI)(TOTW)

Walk Old Shoe, Heel Come A'Draggin' (CH) tab

Jim_VA - Posted - 09/13/2025:  17:23:57

That is a lovely up the neck version, Janet. Thanks!

Thanks for reminding me of Get Up in the Cool and Dear Old Illinois. I had not thought of going through podcasts episodes for more information, and I'm glad you found those nuggets.  As for DOI book, I resisted buying a copy because I thought I already had too many books of transcriptions that I rarely opened. Thank you for consulting it for me!

JanetB - Posted - 09/13/2025:  22:27:25

Thanks, Jim.  I inadvertently missed listening to Genevieve Koester in the link you gave (Garry and Gaye's daughter).  What a great fiddler she is!  A note of interest by Lynn Smith is in the comments of that video (Chirps Lynn Smith?):  "Excellent playing, Genevieve! utub333 mentioned the source - her full name was Alta Pauline (Rion) McGinness, b. 1 July 1913 in Massac Co, IL and d. 1 April 1991. Garry said she learned this tune from her grandfather. Her paternal grandfather was Isaac Rion (b. 1832 in TN) and her maternal grandfather was Willis Richardson (b. 1866 in IL)."