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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 2322
Size: 1,307kb, uploaded 5/16/2014 5:23:12 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the TOTW 5/16/14, played on a Mac Traynham Whyte Laydie openback. I first heard clawhammer banjo by Mac Benford playing this Ed Haley fiddle piece, then listened to both recordings to learn it.
6 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 331
Size: 848kb, uploaded 5/16/2014 5:20:32 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the TOTW 5/16/14, this version of Cabin Creek comes from Ed Haley's great fiddling and Mac Benford's clawhammer interpretation on a CD called "Half Past Four." I'm playing a Gold Tone cello banjo and my husband, Kit, is playing mandolin.
1 commentPosted by JanetB, written by Ernie Carpenter
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- Play count: 212
Size: 971kb, uploaded 5/21/2014 6:18:22 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the Tune of the Week (OT) 5/16/14. The Cabin Creek version by Ernie Carpenter seems to be closest to two of the 4-part Ed Haley version. Elk River Blues is credited to West Virginia fiddler Ernie Carpenter, great-grandson of Sol Carpenter of Shelvin' Rock (an interesting story in American history), after his family home was flooded by the construction of Sutton Dam.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1310
Size: 796kb, uploaded 12/4/2013 5:18:42 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the TOTW 11/29/13 this Cacklin' Hen came from the Coon Creek Girls with a bit of Chubby Wise and David Margolin with Yigal Zan thrown in. She's a timid little hen, but she's clucking a bit Must be a Banty!
7 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 166
Size: 848kb, uploaded 11/25/2018 6:36:30 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 11/23/18, as played by Carl Baron on fiddle, learned from Melvin Wine, who Carl knew personally. After keeping up with those two fiddlers for this recording, I'll be slowing back down to my normal tempo. :)
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 147
Size: 1,120kb, uploaded 9/17/2022 10:03:30 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This very syncopated tune was a challenge to arrange. The TOTW presenter, Stephen Rapp, was able to arrange it in a more standard clawhammer style and plays it wonderfully with his fiddling partner, Paul Kirk, Jr. Check it out on the link for TOTW.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 282
Size: 991kb, uploaded 11/22/2014 5:55:41 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Here's one for the old-time Tune of the Week, 11/21/14, based on the fiddling of Chirps Smith and Paul Tyler. Just in time for a Thanksgiving with calico corn.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1361
Size: 1,100kb, uploaded 1/21/2013 12:27:46 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
As played by Dwight Diller who learned it from Lee Hammons. The banjo here is a Bart Reiter Whyte Laydie.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 307
Size: 968kb, uploaded 1/21/2013 1:00:33 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The first recording of Lee Hammon's Calloway as learned from Dwight Diller was on a Bart Reiter with a White Laydie tone ring. This one is on a simpler, lighter banjo with no tone ring for comparison sake.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 654
Size: 1,818kb, uploaded 11/20/2015 7:06:29 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 11/20/15, this version comes from West Virginia fiddler French Carpenter, grandson of Solomon Carpenter who played a tune he called Camp Chase when he was a prisoner-of-war at that location in Ohio during the Civil War. It's said that by playing the tune best Sol actually won his freedom. Check out the TOTW for more info.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 373
Size: 945kb, uploaded 9/25/2015 12:57:58 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This week's old-time Tune of the Week comes from Uncle Bunt Stephens, who was the winner of the 1926 fiddle contest presented by Henry Ford. The tune is simple enough to allow fun with rhythm and variations.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 84
Size: 2,264kb, uploaded 3/16/2024 8:40:46 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Based on the playing of the Leslie Riddle and the Carter Family, the melody resembles White House Blues, an earlier song, and is included in a Tune of the Week featuring the latter. This recording was made when my husband, Kit, and I were performing locally at events focusing on local history. We liked choosing old-time tunes and songs and have a informal front porch sound. Plinky & Plunky with our mandolin and banjo played a lot together until Kit's stroke.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1323
Size: 746kb, uploaded 11/23/2011 9:20:30 PM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A round with banjo and mandolin.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 1625
Size: 1,100kb, uploaded 12/17/2011 8:13:46 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Turlough O'Carolan (1670 - 1738) was influenced by Italian composers and this is one of his best such tunes.
8 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 220
Size: 1,535kb, uploaded 11/30/2015 11:34:48 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
In Carolan's Cottage I'm given to think of the blind harpist, Turlough O’Carolan, beginning in the late 1600's, wandering from "big house" to "big house," earning a living by entertaining his hosts with song and harp. His must have had his own small cottage when he eventually married and raised five children. Or perhaps the cottage of this tune was one of a few from his childhood, in particular the one on the land of a major patroness, Mrs. MacDermott Roe. It was here he caught smallpox and lost his sight. Subsequently he received instruction on the harp and was given a horse and guide to make his way in the world.
1 commentPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 142
Size: 1,220kb, uploaded 12/6/2019 8:55:02 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A lovely old air by O'Carolan, the famed Irish harpist, born in 1678.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 1896
Size: 954kb, uploaded 1/2/2012 9:17:17 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This song is so pretty it's hard to imagine it's about a quarrel, but I think the landlady didn't want him to keep drinking her supply of ale, so he argues about it. At least that's what the biographic sources say.
8 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 1558
Size: 1,030kb, uploaded 2/16/2012 7:43:26 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A song O'Carolan wrote in honor of Dr. John Stafford, friend and patron, in celebration when he prescribed whiskey to treat depression, after the blind harpist had become depressed when another doctor had him refrain from whiskey for a medical condition.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 1953
Size: 753kb, uploaded 11/16/2011 5:55:11 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
In my continuing effort to study O'Carolan's works, I've found another gem of a melody, #171 in his notated songs from Donal O'Sullivan's biography Carolan,The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper; and tabbed nicely in Ron Hughes O'Carolan for the 5 String Banjo book.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 114
Size: 1,695kb, uploaded 9/5/2020 2:21:14 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Samuel Bayard, the famous tune collector from Pennsylvania, had several versions recorded of Carrolltown Breakdown, popular during his day. He claimed it's related to Buffalo Gals, so I tacked that one at the end for comparison. The first comes from one of the sources, Wilbur V. Neal, who was an elderly man when recorded in the 1950's. The second comes from the modern arrangement by Mark Tamsula and Richard Withers, based on the source fiddled recording of Harry "Tink" Queer, in his 50's in the 1950's, and the last is a snippet of the traditional Buffalo Gals.
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