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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 2324
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.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 332
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.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Ernie Carpenter
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- Play count: 213
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.
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Posted 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!
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Posted 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. :)
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Posted 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.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 284
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.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1372
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 comments
Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 84
Size: 2,322kb, uploaded 4/28/2025 4:07:56 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The Tune of the Week is presenting a beauty of a WV tune. With a few variations between the family members, the one from Lee Hammons is the focus. This gave me an opportunity to draw something different.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 309
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.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 658
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.
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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 375
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.
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Posted 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.
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Posted 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.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 1627
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.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 221
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.
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Posted 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.
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Posted 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.
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Posted 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.
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Posted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 1954
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.
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