Banjo Hangout Top 100 Clawhammer and Old-Time Songs

Jeff Goehring, Ward Jarvis

Live gig. Just banjo and vocal. The banjo is a 1923 Gibson TB-3 Trapdoor conversion

Banjo is set in the "Half Shaved" tuning (f#DADE). This is an Oscar Wright tune that I first heard on the Fuzzy Mountain String Band album way back when.

My highly idiosyncratic version of Spring Creek Gal combined with my slightly idiosyncratic Moses Hoe Your Corn.

Another version of Magpie, this time I'm getting acquainted with my new banjo (Rickard White Laydie Half-Spun).

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.

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."