Banjo Hangout Top 100 Clawhammer and Old-Time Songs

A planxty written to honor the head of an important Irish clan. The O'Connors were generous hosts of O'Carolan many a-time. A boyhood friend of O'Carolan's was also an O'Connor named Dennis. They would have known each other as neighbors before O'Carolan's blindness at age 18.

Originally in a 1926 Rodgers and Hart musical, Betsy, and recorded by 50 or more singers and bands afterwards.

Key of G. Learned from an album in the sixties by "We Five," as I recall, but with variations added.

Key of G. Learned from an album in the sixties by "We Five," as I recall, but with variations added.

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/15/15. This comes from Samuel Bayard's Hill Country Tunes collection (link in TOTW: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/303774). My first effort to play Sweet Ellen was in open G tuning with a raised 5th string. This version is in double C tuning (capo 2 for its original key of D).

It's really a sweet tune and I'm interested in anything from Samuel Bayard's collections. I'll never know if my father knew Sam Bayard -- same college, about the same time, same major....We all find personal connections in this old-time musical journey and that's one of mine.

aDAde - derived from Melvin Wine's fiddling. Not exactly as in my Banjo Newsletter tab of 31 years ago (February, 1984).

Tune in D related to The Boys of Bluehill. Recorded for the 5/1/15 old-time tune of the week.

Learned from the fiddling of well-known Missourian Lonnie Robertson (1908 - 1981). I'm just becoming familiar with some of his work and am impressed by his smooth, clear, fast playing.

A second tune I've learned from the playing of Missouri fiddler Lonnie Robertson (1908 - 1981). Old Joe was also played on the Opry and possibly has some links (in its "odd metric patterns") to a minstrel tune of the same name.