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Please note this is an archived topic, so it is locked and unable to be replied to. You may, however, start a new topic and refer to this topic with a link: http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/408638
Earlofdon76 - Posted - 05/17/2026: 13:22:10
Evening folks from Coventry, England.
Question: what key did Luke Kelly play/sing in?
Capo on fifth fret(?) in a long neck.
But was in tuned to open G?
Bawheid - Posted - 05/17/2026: 13:33:14
Luke played pretty much everything in drop C (gCGBD) and very rarely in double C (gCGCD). He would move his capo all along his long neck banjos. He would play predominantly out of C chord position but also G and rarely in minor keys. That covers pretty much every key you would need.
His playing style was very simple picking patterns, up-picking (“Seeger style”), or just simple strumming like a guitar.
He played a dog of a banjo made by Merlin and was all aluminium (neck included) with a fibreglass pot. Pretty tubby sounding banjo and with the most horrendous neck-dive you can imagine. 33:1 tuners! Late career he played a Vega Tubaphone.
My favorite artist of all time!
Tim Jumper - Posted - 05/17/2026: 16:27:32
The Dubliners were the best, and Luke's performances of so many songs were definitive -- "Shoals of Herring," "Night Visiting Song," "On Raglan Road," "Freeborn Man," et al., et al.
To use a locution applied long ago to S.J. Perelman: "Before they made him, they broke the mold."
Earlofdon76 - Posted - 05/17/2026: 17:00:34
Thanks for the replies folks.
I have a long neck but how do I get the dropped C tuning?
It seems that it might work for me.
The long neck is tuned different than my Deering.
banjered - Posted - 05/18/2026: 13:45:20
If your banjo is 4 frets lower, the equivalent tuning for drop A would be AEGB. I guess you would tune the fifth string sympatico with what key you choose. Good Luck! banjered
Bill Rogers - Posted - 05/18/2026: 13:59:50
Kelly seems to have been heavily influenced by Pete Seeger with his choice of banjo and tuning(s). For the time period, that makes sense. Like Seeger, he was, after all, primarily a singer, using the banjo to accompany his voice rather than for instrumental work. In the Dubliners, that was left mostly to Barney McKenna and John Sheahan.
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