Hi everyone!
Every time I do one of these, I really struggle to find a tune that hasn't already been done, but fortunately people keep turning me on to new tunes!
This one, a tune called Doctor, Doctor (or Dear Doctor) I recently got from a local fiddle player here in Pittsburgh (Bruce Jacobs) at a jam and it makes a good banjo tune so I thought I'd share it.
I couldn't find a whole lot about it, but there's some info in this old fiddle hangout thread. There are a couple of transcriptions, one by Steve Rosen (audio here) and a version from the Canote Brothers.
Rayna Gellert has a nice recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8VkMkCpXuk and here's a jam recording from the fiddle hangout thread: https://youtu.be/JSi6bxNYQhw?si=Jma9gTTD02XqKxbN&t=1088.
A few spins through it with some ideas for variations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeGuQ3Jakd0
It's a pretty straightforward tune, but I'll try to tab it out later this week in case that's helpful for anyone.
Hope you all have a great week!
This tune brings back memories! I'm thinking "greatest hits of 1979" (or somewhere thereabouts). I used to play this with Greg and Jere Canote and others in our West Coast scene in those days. There is another tune, titled Lovely Jane that I learned some years later from Melvin Wine which is closely related to this tune, though I don't know any other related tunes. Here's Melvin playing Lovely Jane, with Kate Brett on banjo and Gerry Milnes on guitar. (There's not a video, just audio with a "cover photo"). Melvin pronounced the name "Luv-lie Jane".
Edited by - BrendanD on 04/18/2026 03:43:39
quote:
Originally posted by BrendanDThere is another tune, titled Lovely Jane that I learned some years later from Melvin Wine which is closely related to this tune, though I don't know any other related tunes. Here's Melvin playing Lovely Jane, with Kate Brett on banjo and Gerry Milnes on guitar. (There's not a video, just audio with a "cover photo"). Melvin pronounced the name "Luv-lie Jane".
https://www.banjohangout.org/archive/359844
PS What I remember:
Doctor, Doctor
Come here quick
This damn old moonshine
Is making me sick.
Edited by - carlb on 04/18/2026 05:15:40
Adam, I love this tune, got introduced to it by my fiddling friend John Reddick. You play it really well, with a lot of wonderful phrasing! Here's my version in three finger style, recorded back in 2020. I am playing my 1928 Vega Tubaphone with a semi-fretless conversion neck, tuned in open D (aDF#AD).
Edited by - Don Borchelt on 04/19/2026 10:42:06
Good to hear you, Adam and Don. I tried to dig deeper for the tune's roots and checked with Dan Gellert, who Rayna Gellert says was the source for her own source of learning. Dan wrote: "If memory serves... I learned it (~50 years ago!) from Dick Tarrier, who learned it from somebody in NC. It's more or less a version of 'Folding Down the Sheets', which goes by a bunch of other names, too." And so the search needs to continue...
Rayna is one of my favorite resources to learn from. Inserting Folding Down the Sheets in the recording seems to make a good medley with Doctor, Doctor.
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