Guy Clark had it:
Black Diamond Strings are like white flour and grits
You play the cause they're all you can get
Break one, you change one
You can play all year long on two or three sets
Black Diamond Strings on a catalog guitar
That's pretty high cotton, whoever you are
OR (my mod)
Black Diamond Strings on a catalog banjo
That's pretty high cotton, don't everyone know
oh do we ol folks remember those old days with them stretchy black diamond strings (took a week for the banjo or guitar to stay in tune through a whole song and a half) lol......especially if they only came ball end and you had to make your own loops....memories
And they came in a box!
Don Stover use to play at the Sticky Wicket Pub (now closed) in Upton, Massachusetts, on Sunday nights for many a year. Essentially it was a band practise night for them. I use to go most Sundays to listen to Don and frequently Don would chat with me when the band took a break.
One night Don had me bring my banjo, and he taught me Black Diamond. I tabbed it out for my banjo students years later. No melodics in Don's playing of Black Diamond (I think Bill Keith got the germ for melodics from Don), simple rolls, and lots of repeated right hand fingering. The song relies heavily on chords and the first beat of each of the first seven measures running a down hill scale.
The up the neck version is my arrangement.
I hope you enjoy playing Black Diamond.
YMMV
Heavythumb
The Tab didn't come through the last post Sorry
easybluegrassbanjo.files.wordp...ond-2.jpg
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