Shady Grove is a tune that has had a lot of play over the years. I always associate this one with Doc Watson. I learned to play a version of this tune when I started learning clawhammer, but stopped playing it for no real reason and it drifted out of my memory. I’ve recently started playing it again, so I’ve been listening to various versions. The following video featuring Doc with the Kruger Brothers is a great example of his signature approach to the tune, and it features Jens Krugers wonderful banjo picking.
Bruce Molsky is one of my favourite old time musicians. If you’re just getting into this kind of music and you’re thinking of adding some old time tunes to your collection, you can’t go wrong with Molsky, whose recorded output is excellent. He plays banjo, fiddle and guitar – but here he is on banjo playing Shady Grove.
We usually think of Shady Grove as a “modal” tune (Dorian mode), but it has been done as a major tune as well. Kilby Snow, the autoharp player, recorded a great version of this. You can hear a sample of that here. Also, enjoy Zepp’s major version on banjo….
Homework: check out a tune called The Death of Sis Draper by Guy Clark. I couldn’t find it on YouTube. It’s on his recent (tremendously good) recording, My Favorite Picture of You. The Death of Sis Draper is done to the tune of Shady Grove. It is a followup to his much earlier tune Sis Draper. Not only does it use the melody from Shady Grove, it also references Shady Grove in the lyrics. We love this whole album around 27th Street – you will too.
27th Street 
What Seymour said. Shady Grove is clearly plagiarized from Matty Groves. That song dates back to the early 1600s and is most known these days by fans of Fairport Convention as it’s one of their live staples. The Death of Sis Draper is a second-hand plagiarization as the tune of that one is CLEARLY the same as Shady Grove and Matty Groves but Clark makes ZERO mention of it as being even “influenced” by those songs. Shameful, and really surprising that the Grammy committee didn’t notice it.
In my view, this is folk music, and we own it together. I’m fine with the Sis Draper songs, as I am with Woody Guthrie using Wabash Cannonball for Grand Coulee Dam and Redwing for Union Maid.
Sounds almost identical to the tune of “Matty Groves”, a ballad that has been really popular over here ever since it was sung by Sandy Denny on Fairport Convention’s ‘Liege and Lief’ album in the late 60s.