Banjo Hangout Top 100 Clawhammer and Old-Time Songs

From the CD "The Old Texas Fiddle, Vol. II", with Howard Rains and Tricia Spencer, fiddles; Brendan Doyle, banjo; Nancy Hartness, guitar; Charlie Hartness, ukulele; Virginia Musser, bass. Recorded in December, 2014 by Mike West at the 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor, Lawrence, KS.

Upload for the Old Time TOTW for December 4, 2020. The tune is generally called Too Young to Marry, but the fiddler I learned it from called it Buffalo Nickel.

The date hasn't rung any bells yet, but the minor key sure gives it a rather melancholy feel. I listened to some vintage Piney Creek Weasels to arrange this one and used a rare Am tuning rare -- aEACE.

Dock Boggs' Country Blues/Hustling Gambler in f#CGAD tuned a half step or so low...

A fine Tune of the Week from North Carolina with a crooked part that suits the title Green River.

A wonderful champion fiddler, Tatiana Hargreaves, plays the Tune of the Week and bases it upon the older fiddler Emma Lee Dickerson. In an interview Tatiana claims that's her doppelg?nger, a new word for me. They look alike in photos. The tune is very familiar to me, but Emma Lee's is unique, so I also include the more traditional one in this recording.

Rose for Polly is a pretty, 3-part song in a minor key. Perhaps it makes for a good love story -- a hopeful suitor gives her a rose, she responds sweetly, but with a bit of reservation, though continuing to offer hope.

This is the one of the versions for the old-time Tune of the Week, differing from the famous Uncle Dave Macon song. My arrangement comes from Erich Schroeder (BHO's vrteach). I wish he was still active here and I really enjoyed learning a tune from his recording. The title, as we learn in the discussion thread, is probably not the real one. But if it were to be, I'm reminded of Old Sacramento where you walk on the historic old plank road as you visit the shops and museums and go on the old Delta King steamboat on the Sacramento River. At least, I nostalgically hope we can still do that....

Finger picked on a newly crafted 11"walnut and pecan open back banjo in open D tuning d a f# d f#.

Passed down through generations, northern Georgia banjo player Chesley Chancey (1913 - 1980) passed the tune Mulberry Gap from his grandfather on to Stephen Wade in 1979 while Art Rosenbaum recorded it at Chesley's home. He played it in the 2-finger style. I play it in the clawhammer style.