Available recording and video:

“Fingering with Your Fingers” is by the Mississippi Sheiks.  It was recorded on January 19, 1935, in New Orleans for the Victor Company and released as one side of a 10” 78 rpm shellac disk under the Bluebird label.  The Sheiks/Chatmon brothers (see below) were busy that day. Bo Carter (Armenter Chatmon) recorded 12 songs (10 solo guitar/vocal and two with the addition of piano, probably played by his brother Harry).  The Sheiks recorded seven songs (fiddle, guitar, and vocal) and one tune (“Fingering with Your Fingers”).  Harry Carter (Chatmon) recorded two songs with piano, vocal, and guitar (Bo Carter?).  Information from the DAHR and Discogs.  “Fingering with Your Fingers” was later released in 1991 as a track on Document Records’ “Mississippi Sheiks & Chatman Brothers – Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order: Volume 4 (26 March 1934 To 15 October 1936)” and is available at YouTube from The Orchard Enterprise (so, not a copyright violation).

There is also a video of Tuba Skinny, a New Orleans jazz band, playing “Fingering with Your Fingers” on Royal St. in the French Quarter of New Orleans:

Why did I pick this tune?

In part because I knew I would be out of town for Thanksgiving and would need to pick a tune I had already recorded.

But why this particular tune?

1. It’s in the key of Bb major - The diversity for keys at TOTWs is pretty low.  Although I must admit I have not checked (someone else will?), this may be one of our first, if not the first, Bb tune at TOTW.  Almost all the tunes at TOTW are fiddle tunes, and Bb is not a comfortable key for most fiddlers.  It requires the index finger to note a half-step up on the open E string (not a problem, as that’s required in the key of C) and a half-step up on the open A string.  That’s an unnatural feeling.  Get the pun?  Bb (unnatural) instead of A natural (tee-hee).  Fiddle tunes in Bb often arose in that key because they came from or were paired with instruments that were in Bb.  A good example is “Ned Kendall’s Hornpipe” in Bb because it came from Ned Kendall, a keyed-bugle player whose bugle was, presumably, in the key of Bb.  Some fiddlers play that tune in Bb but others have moved it to D for comfort.  A lot of Zydeco tunes are in Bb because bands are using “Cajun accordions.” These accordions are diatonic (only “white” keys) and may be in the key of Bb.  Some fiddlers (such as Dewey Balfa) adapted by tuning their fiddles down a whole-step and playing as if they were in the key of C.  OK, enough music theory.  I don’t really have a good idea of why “Fingering with Your Fingers” is in Bb, but it is.  This was not an unnatural key for the Sheiks.

2. It’s by the Mississippi Sheiks – The Mississippi Sheiks were a preeminent African American string band in the early 1930s.  While they are mostly known for their many blues recordings, they occasionally played waltzes (“The Sheiks Waltz”, yes, in Bb) and some country rags (such as “Fingering with Your Fingers”).  I can almost guarantee (without having looked!) that this is the first TOTW from the Sheiks.  We’re at a bit over 900 TOTWs now, so it seems high time to have a tune from this important African American string band.

How did the Mississippi Sheiks get their name? – They were from Bolton, MS, so the first part of their name is obvious.  Common thought is that the “Sheiks” part of the name came from Rudolph Valentino’s starring role as the Sheik in the 1921 silent film of the same name.  But that may be an over-simplification.  The liner notes for Document Records DOCD-5083 by Chris Smith have: “It wasn’t until February 1930 that the Mississippi Sheiks encountered Okeh’s field recording unit in Shreveport, Louisiana, some distance from their base in the Jackson, Mississippi area. Their name was made up at the recording session at the request of producer Polk Brockman, and was apparently inspired by the pop hit “Sheik of Araby”, although the word was common in black speech, thanks to Rudolph Valentino.” 

The “Sheik of Araby” was a Tin Pan Alley song from 1921 written based on the popularity of the silent film, so we are in a bit of a chicken-egg question here for the source of the name.  Incidentally, there was a Memphis blues guitar duo in the late ‘20s named “The Beale Street Sheiks.”

Who were the Mississippi Sheiks? – The group was somewhat fluid in composition, but consisted of sons of Henderson Chatmon from Bolton, MS often with Walter Vinson, also from Bolton.  To confuse matters, Vinson sometimes recorded under the name Walter Jacobs after his mother Mary Jacobs.  The Chatmon brothers’ names and composition of the band for any given song or tune are complicated.  Generally, Armenter (who went by Bo and sometimes Bo Carter) played guitar, Alonzo (who went by Lonnie) played fiddle, and Sam Chatmon played guitar.  The most extensive information on the Mississippi Sheiks is T. DeWayne Moore’s chapter in Harry Bolick and Tony Russell’s (2021) University Press of Mississippi book: Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi: Commercial and Informal Recordings, 1920-2018.  Jeff Harris at a blog for the “Big Road Blues Show” wrote regarding Moore’s chapter that “…he delivers the first complete fleshing-out of the Chatmon family’s complicated genealogy as well as provides a wealth of new information on specific family members, particularly Alonzo Chatmon, the fiddler in the most commercially successful black string band of the pre-war era, The Mississippi Sheiks.”  Moore is one of the Board Members of the Mount Zion Memorial Fund whose goals are “Marking Graves, Maintaining Cemeteries, and Telling the Stories of Legends.”  In one of Moore’s posts to the MZMF he gives a little history of Henderson Chatmon, the patriarch of the Chatmon brothers and a fiddler himself who instructed his children in music. Hear/see Sam Chatmon describe how their father would tell his children that they were making a mistake when they were playing music:

Moore’s description is: “Henderson Chatmon was born a slave in 1849 to Nancy (b. 1831) and Polk Chapman (b. 1832) while living, most likely, on the plantation of Colonel M.L. Cook in Hinds County, Mississippi.”  Apparently the Chatmon name came from someone mishearing “Chapman” as “Chatmon.”  For a bit more information on the Mississippi Sheiks see the text from the historical marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Sheiks .

Which individuals were playing for the recording of “Fingering with Your Fingers”?

This is a bit unclear. In the only transcription I could find of the tune: Stacy Phillips (2005) Favorite American Rags & Blues for Fiddle.  Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications, he lists the tune as “Lonnie Chatmon with the Mississippi Sheiks.”  The record label (see below) just has “Mississippi Sheiks.” The listing at the Discography of American Historical Recordings has that Lonnie Chatman was playing violin (well, fiddle) and both Bo Carter (so, Armenter Chatmon, aka Bo Chatmon) and Walter Vincent were playing guitar.  I only hear one guitar and Discogs  just lists Bo Chatmon on guitar in addition to Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle.

My recording and the lack of a tab:

I recorded the tune in Bb using the banjo tuned f, Bb, F, Bb, D.  If you take that up a whole step it is g, C, G, C, E, so essentially the usual “double-C” tuning but with the first string tuned up a whole-step.  I use this a lot for C tunes.  I uploaded the *.mp3 to https://tunebat.com/Analyzer which will give the key and the beats per minute (bpm).  My playing came back at 117 bpm, the same tempo as the Sheiks’.  The key detected was incorrect as was the case for the Sheiks’ recording.  All the same, I found it really useful to have an automatic detection of the bpm as opposed to having to count the beats per minute myself.  As to how accurately I captured the melody itself, that is another question.

I never wrote a tab for this tune when I first recorded it because I was none too sure what I was actually doing aside from just playing the tune.  I let Janet know a few weeks ago what tune I was planning for the TOTW in the hopes that she would do her own rendition including a tab.  She sent me both (excellent as always!) so I know she will post them.  She moved the tune to G, which means that there may be some hope of getting fiddlers to play the tune.  I hope so, because I don’t know of any Mississippi Sheiks string band tunes that have made it through the old time music revival.

MS Sheiks record label

Fingering with Your Fingers

Edited by - LyleK on 11/28/2025 08:03:10