Posted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 540
Size: 917kb, uploaded 1/18/2012 6:10:21 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
O'Carolan had a sweet friendship with Bridget Cruise before he was blinded. Later he wrote four airs with her name as the title. He held her hand again one day for a fast moment while helping strangers board a boat he was about to leave. He recognized her hand!
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Greg Canote
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- Play count: 457
Size: 2,202kb, uploaded 5/6/2017 12:05:09 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/5/17, Obama's March to the White House is a stately, but lively tune composed by the fiddling Canote twin, Greg. I heard Adam Hurt's beautiful playing of it before this TOTW made me aware of the Canote Brothers own version.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1539
Size: 926kb, uploaded 11/27/2011 5:57:45 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
First played in waltz time, then as a hornpipe.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1834
Size: 530kb, uploaded 5/11/2012 5:22:58 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
By researching this song I've learned about the history of the Irish people. I've known the song since the 70's, but didn't know then I'd be living on the land of Irish immigrants. They came to California seeking to escape harsh conditions and ended up working hard in the mines and on farms, just like in my once-thriving community of Smartsville. For more information about this happy, hopeful tune see this week's Tune of the Week .
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Lloyd Chandler
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- Play count: 292
Size: 1,198kb, uploaded 10/24/2016 12:08:56 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 10-22-16. Dock Boggs and Ralph Stanley are the two seminal examples of this song. Dock Boggs played it picking style and gave us the common verses we hear and Ralph Stanley's best version was a capapella heard in Oh Brothers, Where Art Thou. I've attempted Oh Death in clawhammer style here on cello banjo, tuned in sawmill, thinking Dock Boggs' words as I play. Its lyrics are an icy portrait of death that could help lead a personal to repentance, as it did the original writer, Lloyd Chandler, a Free Will Baptist minister in the 1920's, after he dreamed it. Check out this week's TOTW for more info.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 717
Size: 1,304kb, uploaded 4/3/2015 8:51:13 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
It's interesting that William Sydney Mount, the famous painter of The Banjo Player, had in his notes and diary this version of Oh Susannah in 1848, the same year that Stephen Foster published the song, too. I'm enjoying studying the great painter who was also a dedicated fiddler.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by A.P. Carter
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- Play count: 213
Size: 1,965kb, uploaded 8/27/2011 11:43:36 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
One of the Carter family songs Kit and I worked up for our duet performances.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 644
Size: 1,197kb, uploaded 4/9/2016 7:44:08 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This old-time Tune of the Week is quite old -- from the 1700's -- and comes from Sweden (and has a Swedish name if you check it out here: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/317105. I liked the fact that the lyrics describe the lonely but important work of the Swedish "cowgirl" who had to move and keep watch on the herds of cattle and goats at certain times of the year to allow the fields to be used for crop growing. I'm playing in open G in the key of Am.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 88
Size: 2,194kb, uploaded 3/29/2024 4:48:19 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the playing of an Alabama fiddler, Paisley Hagood. Mostly he plays ABAB, which is kind of a treat after always playing AABBAABB. The high note in the A part gives it an ancient tone feeling for me.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 627
Size: 1,053kb, uploaded 5/1/2013 12:10:01 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Kentucky fiddler Owen 'Snake' Chapman learned this from his father, 'Doc.' Played on a Mac Traynham Whyte Laydie.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Noah Bingham
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- Play count: 894
Size: 507kb, uploaded 6/30/2012 2:42:55 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Estill Bingham (1899 - 1990) learned this from his father, Noah, in southeastern Kentucky. I had learned another one of his songs for last week's Tune of the Week and it was recommended I also listen to this nice crooked tune.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 431
Size: 1,220kb, uploaded 8/26/2016 5:02:13 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For this week's old time Tune of the Week (8/26/16) one of my favorite tunes learned from my lessons with Adam Hurt has been chosen. I've already recorded Old Beech Leaves a couple of times, so I thought I'd listen to the source recording and try arranging it in another tuning. This one is worked out in open G tuning, played on my cello banjo (so actually tuned down to an open C). It was recorded from the rather rough playing of a Kentucky fiddler from Logan County, Sid Hudnall, who lived with his family pretty much isolated from the rest of the world. Check out the TOTW for more info and tab of Adam's version (with his permission).
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 331
Size: 885kb, uploaded 6/8/2013 5:39:59 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the Tune of the Week 6-7-13. Something about this tune makes me play faster than usual.
6 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 390
Size: 831kb, uploaded 7/29/2014 5:28:54 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the fiddling of Bruce Greene who learned it from Uncle George Nicholson (born in Laurel Co., KY in 1854). This tune reminds me of another I've heard before. For some reason the tune gives me a deep sense of deja vu when Bruce plays it. It's on his solo fiddle CD Five Miles of Ellum Wood.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 65
Size: 2,744kb, uploaded 8/18/2024 6:04:36 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the playing of Bruce Greene via Kentucky fiddler Gusty Wallace. The measure count is very unusual, but it's a neat tune. Bruce Greene has found good crooked tunes, many probably from Kentucky. Check out his Five Miles from Ellum Wood CD.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 199
Size: 1,484kb, uploaded 12/26/2015 3:05:02 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 12-25-15, luckily Old Christmas refers to the continuation of the Christmas celebration until January 6, the day of Epiphany, so I'm not late in posting this. :) I found out more speaking with my sister living in Spain. January 6th celebrates the day the Three Wise Men brought gifts to baby Jesus. It took them 12 days to walk there after His birth, therefore the January date. Those 12 days in Spain mean much to the people and the tourists who enjoy the many festivities. In the recent past most presents for Christmas weren't delivered until Jan. 6th, though that's changing these days to make room for Santa Claus and school vacation schedules. This arrangement comes from Bruce Greene, who recorded Kentucky fiddler Manon Campbell and also listened to the Lomax LOC 1937 recording of another Kentucky fiddler, Uncle George Custer Nicholson (1854 - 1941).
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 775
Size: 1,448kb, uploaded 12/2/2017 10:41:52 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This archaic tune has more than one related version, but this week's old-time Tune of the Week for 12/1/17 focuses on West Virginian fiddler French Carpenter (1905 -1965). I now know why January 6 is also celebrated as Christmas, or "Old Christmas," as the English calendar was changed in 1752 and 12 days were left out, bringing December 25th to January 6th. Learn something new every day....
2 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Pat Conte
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- Play count: 97
Size: 2,268kb, uploaded 7/15/2023 1:39:48 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A new version of Cumberland Gap for me. I can hear a bit of the traditional one here.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 335
Size: 849kb, uploaded 4/10/2015 11:20:29 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, this comes mostly from Burl Hammons, then Dwight Diller and Jimmy Tripplett, then David Margolin and Yigal Zan. That makes it 4th generation here! It's in modal tuning (gDGCD), but if you check out the current TOTW you'll learn of another beautiful tuning to try it in: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/302159
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 196
Size: 1,903kb, uploaded 9/22/2015 7:23:45 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Since the current old-time Tune of the Week, Rattletrap, is said to be related to Old Granny Rattletrap I thought it would be interesting to compare the two. I discovered that within the first part of the Granny version is the second part of the Rattletrap tune. Old Granny Rattletrap was recorded in the 40's by a fiddler, Bill Hensley, originally from eastern Tennessee, born in 1873. Rattletrap was recorded much later by the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, a group from eastern Tennessee begun by the Birchfield family in the 70's (though the founder, Joe Birchfield, born in 1912, had learned fiddling with his family as a youngster). I'd conclude Bill's Old Granny Rattletrap influenced Joe's Rattletrap, a tune said to be the group's theme song.
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