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Posted by JanetB, written by Garry Harrison
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- Play count: 103
Size: 1,375kb, uploaded 1/24/2017 7:27:19 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
When I heard Don Huber play Red Prairie Dawn by Illinois fiddler and well-known tune collector Garry Harrison, I felt I had to learn that tune. On the same CD are several other originals. This one, called Jail Break, sounded like bagpipes at first, but Garry actually used a fiddle he himself had made. I like the B part where it goes up high and you can feel the emotion of the moment.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 282
Size: 1,340kb, uploaded 11/13/2015 12:30:16 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 11/13/15, from the fiddling of Edden Hammons of West Virginia.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Kenneth Elkington
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- Play count: 90
Size: 1,424kb, uploaded 1/4/2019 9:46:12 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
VancePants wrote Tune for Janet today. I'm so excited I had to try it already. He plays it 2-finger picking in his beautiful way and I'm attempting it clawhammer style. The rhythm feels Baltic to me. You'd think it's crooked, but it's not. It would be the kind of dance tune the people have to do some quick little syncopated steps all together and proceed -- I can picture it! But don't ask me to try that....Thanks so much, Ken, dedicating a tune to me. That's a keepsake to always treasure, especially right here on BHO where we interact and encourage each other on our musical journeys.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 999
Size: 1,071kb, uploaded 12/14/2011 8:17:06 PM
Genre: Popular / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Here's my first grade bunch getting ready for our performance that evening.
11 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 132
Size: 741kb, uploaded 4/6/2020 11:27:50 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week for 4/3/20, Jaw Bone (aka The Old Jaw Bone) is arranged from Bruce Molsky and the Mountain Drifters. Bruce is faithful to the older resources and got his from Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers. I keep thinking Jaw Bone is the name of a horse in the song, which has lyrics...
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 672
Size: 930kb, uploaded 12/13/2014 6:16:54 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From Etta Baker for the old-time Tune of the Week for 12/12/14. This tune is compared to a fandango. Etta learned it from her brother-in-law, who learned it from his father. It's the first fandango-type tune I've learned and the first I've learned from Etta Baker, who many people have admired. She picked this one 2-finger style on banjo. I'm using clawhammer
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1205
Size: 1,807kb, uploaded 10/13/2012 1:28:06 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
John Salyer of Kentucky is credited most with this song. Pete Sutherland's slow version on "Banjo Gathering" inspired me to learn it, listening both to his 3-finger picking and the original fiddle recording of Salyer in 1940. Thus I'm playing it slow first, then fast; picking, then clawhammer.
7 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 224
Size: 1,196kb, uploaded 9/17/2017 11:43:46 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 9/15/17, Clyde Davenport, wonderfully smooth Kentucky fiddler, learned this from his father Will who learned it from their neighbor, elder fiddler Will Phipps (b. 1829). It has a modal sound, so I arranged it in sawmill tuning.
1 commentPosted by JanetB, written by Owen "Snake" Chapman
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- Play count: 197
Size: 1,352kb, uploaded 7/12/2017 9:33:30 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Owen "Snake" Chapman (1919 - 2002), Kentucky fiddler, recorded two CDs through which we can learn about him and his music. He knew BHO member Jim Reed well, and also played with and for notables such as Ed Haley and Kenny Baker. Snake felt Jenny's Waltz was his best composition, dedicated to his wife. In the recording he's accompanied by 3-finger picker Paul David Smith, who passed away a few years ago. My arrangement is clawhammered on my new small-scale Doc's Banjo, which I can't seem to put down. :)
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Bill Monroe
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- Play count: 1711
Size: 1,363kb, uploaded 2/25/2013 6:12:52 AM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Kenny Baker was a genius playing his fiddle. It's real hard on clawhammer banjo, but I can hear the melody and like to think of Bill Monroe listening to his fox hounds hunt on Jerusalem Ridge by his Kentucky home.
7 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 165
Size: 1,364kb, uploaded 4/28/2019 3:02:21 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 4/26/19, you can look up lots of versions of Jesse James on BHO. It's been a popular song over the ages, though with some controversial feelings. My arrangement is based on Pete Seeger's.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 886
Size: 920kb, uploaded 12/22/2012 5:32:32 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the TOTW, Dec. 21, 2012
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 179
Size: 1,424kb, uploaded 3/9/2018 3:45:02 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 3/9/18, Jimmy in the Swamp comes from the fiddle playing of Nebraska great Bob Walters. It's in the key of G and I'm playing in guitar tuning gDGBE. Most banjo players play it in G tuning.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 161
Size: 1,869kb, uploaded 5/25/2018 10:02:55 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Jimmy Johnson is described by Dwight Miller as being a WV tune known elsewhere as John Brown's Dream (also John Harvey's Dream). The two are similar so I put them together. Jimmy Johnson is from Dwight's playing for the Tune of the Week discussion, 5/25/18 and John Brown's Dream comes from Hobart Smith, a past TOTW.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1111
Size: 934kb, uploaded 8/1/2014 8:35:17 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This is from Hobart Smith's fiddling, recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in 1937. He said he got it from his grandfather.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 194
Size: 1,376kb, uploaded 1/11/2019 11:50:57 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the playing of Dwight Diller, this old-time Tune of the Week is one I've heard, but not tried. It was nice learning from a video of Dwight recently playing the tune at a slow tempo. It's one of the tunes taught to our TOTW presenter, Andy Fults, at the first music camp he attended with Dwight.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 129
Size: 1,747kb, uploaded 11/30/2015 11:31:44 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
O'Carolan composed John Drury on his harp with lyrics to honor the wedding of John Drury and Elizabeth Goldsmith in 1724. The last line praised marrying for love, not money, though both bride and groom were well-to-do. Unfortunately the groom died a year later. I'm reminded to gratefully enjoy life's precious moments as they occur. My clawhammer adaptation, with finger-thumb-finger, finger-thumb-finger for the most part, allowed me to claw a jig -- a rare technique for me to use. It's quite fun to get into the 6/8 time rhythm, which I'm playing rather slowly here. I first heard the tune picked in Banjo Hangout member Ron Hughes' instructional book/CD called O'Carolan for 5 String Banjo.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 115
Size: 1,815kb, uploaded 9/1/2021 10:11:57 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From another time when Plinky & Plunky used to perform this ballad....I haven't sung it in years, but for the sake of TOTW, here is our version, less Plinky whose arthritic hands don't want to play mandolin these days.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1256
Size: 762kb, uploaded 2/15/2014 3:41:09 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A great American folk hero song, the Tune of the Week for February 14, 2014, played on a Gold Tone cello banjo.
7 commentsCopyright Notice:
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