I learned this tune from Cathy Barton Para at Midwest Banjo Camp earlier this year. I learned it in standard D tuning (aDAC#E) but somewhere along the way I started messing around with it in DD tuning (aDADE) instead, and I just kept playing it… Read More
I just finished reading Tamara Saviano’s biography of Guy Clark, Without Getting Killed or Caught – the life and music of Guy Clark. Guy Clark passed away earlier this year, leaving behind a fantastic songwriting and performing legacy. I should say before writing about this… Read More
Back in 1850, Stephen Foster published a song called Angelina Baker. Somewhere along the way it morphed into a fiddle tune known as Angeline the Baker. It’s a tune about regret: I bought Angeline a brand new dress Neither black nor brown It was the… Read More
Here’s me attempting to play a strange little old time tune called Greasy Coat. This is in A-modal or sawmill tuning, and as usual I’m playing clawhammer, which is the only way I know how to play.
Here’s Meredeth Axelrod performing Death is only a Dream…
Somehow or another Tuffy P and I independently discovered Shovels and Rope on the YouTube machine. As it turned out, whatever kind of music it is they play, we both like it a lot. We even bought some music (in that adorable obsolete format called… Read More
Tuffy P and I have tickets to see these two tonight!
I posted some train songs earlier, as I do from time to time. The train song may be the perfect folk song genre. Trains bring you to your baby; they get you away from your baby; they take you to the Promised Land (let’s just… Read More
Sometimes nothing will do but I have to listen to train songs. I hope you understand. Railroad Bill. They don’t name people after trains much these days. Here’s Hobart Smith. A brakeman double-tough… Here’s the late U. Utah Phillips, Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.… Read More
There is a fiddle tune called Spotted Pony or The Spotted Pony, normally played in the key of D, which seems to be pretty common among old time players. I had heard a different Spotted Pony, a Missouri tune played in A, on a recording… Read More
27th Street 