“Mississippi Sawyer” is a traditional 'Old Time' instrumental tune from Europe, originally titled: “The Downfall of Paris.” The song is better known in the American South and among American fiddlers as “Mississippi Sawyer.” As usual, I used Dave Hum's YouTube video as a template to make my backing track. Dave uses an interesting tuning (aDGBD). It is a G chord with an added 9th note (the A). So I guess you could call it the G9th Tuning. Just capo the fifth string on the 7th fret.

'Clinch Mountain Backstep' is a Bluegrass banjo tune composed by Ralph Stanley (1927-2016), who until his passing was the last survivor of the great first-generation pioneers of Bluegrass music. This song uses only two chords, A and E (I capoed my acoustic guitar at the 2nd fret, so I played the G and D chord positions to give me the A and E chords, respectively). This song has a nice backwoods mountain feel to it. You'll need a capo on fret 2, and also for fret 7 on the fifth string on your banjo.

Although Dave Hum recorded this song, I chose to use this backing track on YouTube by Ted Lambert at BluegrassBackingTracks.com (a new website that I can't wait to be finished). I love collecting backing tracks...lol. I used this song as a template because it has a clear bass line for me to follow. Good stuff! Enjoy!

I made this extra slow track for those like me who like to learn slow. Remember, the key to learning to play fast is to play slow, so you can learn the song note for note.