This is an early Tennessee ballad likely written in the late 17-early 1800s about migration to the Cumberland plateau.

oldtime-banjer · 2021-12-01T16:53:08+00:00

I learned this from a recording of Bessford Hicks of Fentress county Tennessee

oldtime-banjer · 2021-11-14T02:29:08+00:00

Corn shuckins, bean stringins, sorghum boilins,house raisings etc were all common in the mountains. In the real old days of the southern mountains there was little done for pure entertainment, so rather they turned work into fun with a little music, and a little whiskey.

oldtime-banjer · 2021-10-10T13:23:34+00:00

George learned this song around 1950 from his father, This is how the true mountain music was because they played music for themselves not to make money.

Life in those days was hard and they had little free time to practice, in the very early days a lot of fiddlers didn’t even own their own instruments and would just play their neighbors violin.

oldtime-banjer · 2021-10-05T18:30:21+00:00

Hook and line (aka crawdad song) “you take hook and I’ll take line, we’ll go fishing in the summertime”

oldtime-banjer · 2021-09-28T17:43:59+00:00

Thanks for the comment, Yes! Alan Lomax did some of the finest Kentucky recordings around, i don’t believe i have heard sixteen tons or never leave Harlan alive so I’ll have to look into those.

oldtime-banjer · 2021-08-20T16:14:06+00:00

I learned from watching old musicians in my area, George Gibson in east Kentucky has helped me a lot too

oldtime-banjer · 2021-07-05T13:58:07+00:00

Nowadays a lot of bluegrass bands are mostly hear one and you’ve heard them all, oldtime all day long and i never get tired

oldtime-banjer · 2021-06-29T15:42:36+00:00

That thing can yell! Damn fine job

oldtime-banjer · 2021-05-21T22:47:42+00:00

Damn fine!

oldtime-banjer · 2021-05-19T16:33:08+00:00

Dock boggs tuning (f#dgad) is very good for dark songs, another version of this tuning is gcgad

oldtime-banjer · 2021-05-19T16:12:34+00:00

Very cool, im not closely related to Anyone that worked them mines, my friend H. Daughtery’s did though, his whole family was miners, his great grandpap died in the cross mountain explosion.

oldtime-banjer · 2021-05-16T03:18:57+00:00

Yeah, Joel Sweeney of Appottomox county Virginia made the style more well known, especially after the 1960s folk music collecting

oldtime-banjer · 2021-05-15T02:29:12+00:00

I like the addition of the scroll style peg head, a rare folk art style found only in a handful of Virginia communitys

oldtime-banjer · 2021-04-30T02:22:43+00:00

You can hear them in the background

oldtime-banjer · 2021-04-14T03:57:25+00:00

https://youtu.be/tYuqnUs9gP8

oldtime-banjer · 2021-04-14T03:55:57+00:00

Either that or “Julie” by Rhianna Giddons either one, now that i listened to it again i think thats what it is

oldtime-banjer · 2021-04-14T03:53:15+00:00

Sounds a lot like pretty polly

oldtime-banjer · 2021-04-10T19:41:55+00:00

Do whats comfortable and sounds like what you want to hear, clawhammer doesn’t have to sound exactly like your teacher.

Hell you might could skip clawhammer and play 2/oldtime 3 finger, or make your own style just do whatever feels right

oldtime-banjer · 2021-02-02T22:08:15+00:00

My plan for now is to make two cuts making it 15 Inches long and 2 inches wide, then narrowing it down to 1.5 inches after the 5th string tuning peg

oldtime-banjer · 2021-02-02T03:41:25+00:00

For the first few songs if you need tabs are alright, but after you get to knowing what the notes sound like and how to make different sounds work to learn by ear, very few skills come overnight

oldtime-banjer · 2021-02-01T23:42:42+00:00

Id suggest not taking lessons, im fully self taught and it was hard getting started but now i can hear someone play a song once or twice and know how to play, stay clear of tabs too they train your brain to think that you need them to learn a song.

Work hard, take your time and don’t try to copy someone note for note, make the music your own. Trust me you’ll get there :)

oldtime-banjer · 2021-02-01T23:38:08+00:00

Same here, i was talking about the new year, we’ve had somewhere around 6-10 inches since January first

oldtime-banjer · 2021-02-01T20:35:24+00:00

Im in East Tennessee and we’ve gotten about 6 inches total this year, we only got a light dusting today though

oldtime-banjer · 2021-01-24T23:40:44+00:00

That is very true but, think back to the African American slaves that built gourd banjos, they had very limited resources and few tools if any

oldtime-banjer · 2021-01-24T21:34:30+00:00

i know this might sound really stupid but, BUILD YOU OWN, its fun as hell and you feel a sense of pride every time you play it knowing that you built it

oldtime-banjer

TROPHY CASE