Banjo Hangout Newest 100 Clawhammer and Old-Time Songs

For the old-time Tune of the Week from WV Burl Hammonds' banjo. The tuning is "Little Birdie" tuning, f#DABE, so I combined the two similar tunes.

Two-finger picking, adapted from Jack Childress clawhammer version, using both index and thumb lead. The G part is played with index lead, and the C and D barre parts are played with thumb lead, which I added to fit my style of playing. The various patterns for the G part are as follows: The first Section is I-IT, like a simple clawhammer pattern but with all up-strokes, a pattern which Doc Watson used. The second section (0:52 ) adds a drop-thumb with a pattern of 1325. The third section (1:34 ) does not have the drop-thumb on the G part, but adds “kicking” or pull-offs to each first note of the pattern. The fourth section ( 2:12 ) is like the first on the right hand, except the second index note is brushed down, and the left hand pulls off, "kickin' the strings" as in the third variation. The C and D parts here use downstrokes, and this variation is very close to the way Jack played it.

I use Jack’s tuning of GGGBD (low octave G on String 4). Someone told him this tune was the same as Strinbean’s Cold Creek March (different than Pete Steele “Coal” Creek March) so he changed the name. However, I kept the original name which he learned in Virginia, as I think it is a separate tune. I have also heard fragments of this in other songs. Jack used to play this song in contests in Indiana and Virginia

...on the kit made fretless mountain banjo

Open G tuning; capoed to A. My arrangement.

This old-time Tune of the Week, 3/31/17, came from the playing of Kentucky fiddler Manon Campbell who learned it from his aunt. The story is that a boat was caught in a slow whirlpool at Coal Harbor Bend and didn't realize that the dance tune they kept hearing, thinking they were floating downriver, was from the same gathering at the house by the river. My arrangement comes from fiddler Rhys Jones of the group Bigfoot.

Two-Finger Picking; Several varitations , including some tune variants, one of which I learned from Jack Childress, my Old-Time banjo mentor many years ago, and another which I learned as a child. The first four verse/choruses are Index finger lead, followed by a version (based on Jack's playing) which uses a downward brush on beats two and four, simulating the clawhammer version which Jack played. The remaining three verse/choruses, starting with the up-the-neck part, use a thumb lead. At times these may sound a bit like three-finger bluegrass picking, but they are in fact two-finger, with a "stuttering" effect achieved by alternating lead fingers every three notes. The pattern remains the same (TITI) but a melody note is played every third note

From Winners' New Primer for the Banjo (1864), played on Ome Flora. Tuned bEBEF# (Double-C, capo @ 4). I don't do minstrel / 2-finger style, so I've clawed it up.

Bill & Patti Cummings - fiddle, guitar. Yigal Zan - 5-string banjo. Tablature at, http://www.hangoutstorage.com/banjohangout.org/storage/tabs/b/tab-boys-of-balisod-22484-424192632017.gif

My rendition is roughly based on the fiddling of Edden Hammons. I also used the Low Bass A tuning (as named by Art Rosenbaum) to get the droning 4th string. This is the tuning used by Tommy Jarrell on John Brown's Dream. The tuning is a(low)AAC#E, or in relative terms 12 4 3 5.

Alice Gerrard, a living legend herself, wrote a song about another musical legend, Elizabeth Cotten, who she knew and whose conversation with her inspired this song, released on Alice's CD Bittersweet. As I listened to the CD this song moved me to attempt it on banjo and I've had the delight of learning more about these two amazing women. As the lyrics say, "And won't you sing to me as I take my leave, you're going to miss me when I'm gone."