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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 878
Size: 821kb, uploaded 9/29/2013 4:20:59 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the TOTW, Sept. 27, 2013. This was learned listening to Howard Sims recording by Gerry Harrison on the Dear Old Illinois set. I had such a dog growing up, and, boy, how he could wag that little tail!
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 314
Size: 906kb, uploaded 9/6/2014 7:13:29 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week based on the playing of William Stepp and the more modern recording by Jesse Wells. This title could describe a dog or a laundry item. I'd go along with the laundry as the original idea, but who knows. And I'm grateful for my modern washer and dryer. Here's the link for the TOTW: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/290832
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1366
Size: 1,324kb, uploaded 2/10/2014 2:22:25 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This version of Sugar Hill comes from the fiddling of Grayson County, Virginia fiddler, Emmett Lundy, born in 1864. Adam Hurt's Skype lessons provided the vehicle by which I've been encouraged to listen to, learn, and attempt my own arrangement of Mr. Lundy's tunes. I'm playing on a Gold Tone cello banjo.
6 comments
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 320
Size: 1,292kb, uploaded 9/11/2015 9:25:51 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 9/11/15. Melvin Wine played this one with his father, both of them playing one fiddle just for fun. It's quite a cheerful tune. I remember the candy Sugarbabies as a child--very chewy. Now that's a good memory, though I don't indulge any more!
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 837
Size: 760kb, uploaded 6/3/2012 2:02:03 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Inspired to learn by Adam Kiesling's Tune of the Week.
2 comments
Written/Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 783
Size: 588kb, uploaded 7/13/2011 10:30:16 AM
Genre: Unknown/None Chosen / Playing Style: Unknown/None Chosen
Just holding the banjo and fooling around, sometimes you come up with a sound you like.
5 comments
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 69
Size: 2,019kb, uploaded 5/3/2025 11:24:50 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Learned from the playing of a group called Ruglifters. I hadn't heard of them, but John Herrmann was their banjo player and that's good enough for me. The source recording was by the Lomaxes in 1937 by Kentucky fiddler J.W. Day.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 762
Size: 1,687kb, uploaded 3/24/2018 11:14:25 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, March 23, 2018. Susannah Gal goes by other titles. This one comes from the duet CD of Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham, both from the Round Peak, NC region. Their B part is unique, but they play it together and so it sounds great. Fred adds slides which I attempted to include, too. They must have had lots of fun playing together!
6 comments
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 97
Size: 2,536kb, uploaded 3/23/2024 8:51:12 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
It's rare to work on a jig with clawhammer. This is a sweet tune with a real Irish (to my ears) melody. Its minor tones make it a bit bittersweet.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Rayna Gellert
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- Play count: 1128
Size: 1,213kb, uploaded 11/19/2013 5:56:59 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Rayna Gellert wrote this after coming home from college. I can feel her wistful longing for what she knew were some of the "good ole days." I learned it and then let it remind me of my own college days in the 70's when we played every day in the plaza for the cloggers. I speeded up the waltz to a 4/4 time and think of it as "Santa Barbara Reel." Thanks for the memories, Rayna.
3 comments
Posted by JanetB, written by John A. Stone
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- Play count: 299
Size: 411kb, uploaded 7/1/2011 12:58:51 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Written about Gold Rush era pioneers who emigrated to California from Missouri.
2 comments
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1075
Size: 1,148kb, uploaded 11/4/2013 5:36:26 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Searching for Sam Bayard's Hill Country Tune book on-line, I accidently printed out one of the nearly 100 tunes--#2, Sweet Ellen--and found it wasn't hard to learn. The credit for it is given to Irvin Yaugher of Pennsylvania, where Bayard collected all his tunes. Others have recorded it, included the Canote Brothers and Don Borchelt.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 643
Size: 1,701kb, uploaded 5/16/2015 9:52:05 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/15/15. This comes from Samuel Bayard's Hill Country Tunes collection (link in TOTW: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/303774). My first effort to play Sweet Ellen was in open G tuning with a raised 5th string. This version is in double C tuning (capo 2 for its original key of D). It's really a sweet tune and I'm interested in anything from Samuel Bayard's collections. I'll never know if my father knew Sam Bayard -- same college, about the same time, same major....We all find personal connections in this old-time musical journey and that's one of mine.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Walter Lile
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- Play count: 384
Size: 1,508kb, uploaded 7/16/2013 8:45:51 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the Tune of the Week, July 12, 2013. I listened to Mike Worden's version, which sounds great, and the original by Walter Lile on Slippery Hill. I used notation in the Milliner-Koken American Fiddle Tunes book to make sure I got the crooked measures. It's a charming tune and will take more practice to truly learn it.
2 comments
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 652
Size: 1,014kb, uploaded 10/6/2013 8:17:04 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the TOTW, 10/4/13. Kind of makes one hungry for something that sounds so yummy. It's a sweet-sounding song and has the interesting history from having been recording by two Mississipian musicans--Narmour and Smith--by Okeh, the company who recorded the Carter Family during that era.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Rob Pines & Jim Mullany
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- Play count: 586
Size: 1,354kb, uploaded 11/9/2018 5:26:25 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, Sweet Nell is the title name of a CD by a Washington-based group who wrote the tunes. The tune is named for Nell, the daughter of Paul Newman, partners in a charity-based organic snack company. It's a sweet tune.
5 comments
Posted by JanetB, written by Alice Gerrard
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- Play count: 730
Size: 2,154kb, uploaded 3/24/2017 4:44:27 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Alice Gerrard, a living legend herself, wrote a song about another musical legend, Elizabeth Cotten, who she knew and whose conversation with her inspired this song, released on Alice's CD Bittersweet. As I listened to the CD this song moved me to attempt it on banjo and I've had the delight of learning more about these two amazing women. As the lyrics say, "And won't you sing to me as I take my leave, you're going to miss me when I'm gone."
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Posted by JanetB, written by W.L. Bloomfield (1853)
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- Play count: 609
Size: 559kb, uploaded 7/26/2011 9:11:45 AM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A song about leaving one's home and sadly returning.
1 comment
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 707
Size: 1,651kb, uploaded 3/21/2013 5:53:21 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
These two pieces go together, both in chordal flavor and lyrical themes.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 237
Size: 1,687kb, uploaded 3/20/2016 9:56:46 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 3/18/16 this tune was a new one for me. I listened to a lovely guitar arrangement by Ken Perlman and simplified it for clawhammering. Kids would like to swing on a gate, wouldn't they. Parents would tell them to get off, but it must be too fun to resist
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