Here’s a great old drinkin’ song…or is it a drunkin old love song?
Let’s start with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage
I thought about this tune when I posted an Earnest Tubb number the other day. I think his version is the first I ever heard of this tune…
And Ramblin’ Jack!
In an email to us today, a friend of ours mentioned her parents listening to the Mills Brothers singing Yellow Bird…
This brought back a rush of memories. My father loved The Mills Brothers and listened to them a lot when I was growing up. That is when he wasn’t listening to Kid Ory playing the Muscrat Ramble…
….and the fabulous Jimmy Rushing, Mr. 5X5 singing Good Morning Blues
He played Jimmy Rushing until I never wanted to hear Jimmy Rushing again. I knew every word, every note on those records. And of course, it was my dad’s music. I couldn’t like my dad’s music, could I? But later, years later, when I moved out of the house and I was living in a storefront studio on Ossington Ave – this is way back before Ossington was restaurant alley and even back before it had all those Vietnamese coffee joints with the blackened windows and the pink and black signs – I was there living away from home and it was an exciting time for me. I was making paintings like a mad thing – working until midnight at my job and then painting until 4 in the morning and then sleeping until the crack of noon. Well, it turns out I missed Jimmy Rushing. So I called up my dad and said, hey, you still have those Jimmy Rushing records? Think maybe I could borrow them? He was right. Jimmy Rushing was a fabulous singer.
My dad taught me to love music of all kinds. I remember how he could listen to a jazz piece from way back in the 20s and tell me who was on trumpet and who was on trumbone. And I remember a story he used to tell about going to see Wingy Manone play at the Colonial. He had the waiter bring Wingy a drink up to the stage, and Wingy said to the band, “take it away boys, I have a sponsor” and he went and sat down and had a drink with my father. My dad told me they called him Wingy because he was a one-armed trumpet player.
Here’s Wingy Manone and his Cats playing the Tar Paper Stomp. Ah, that’s nice.
My father bought me my first record. Remember records? It was a 78 rpm recording of Ernest Tubb, the Texas Troubadour, playing Walking the Floor Over You. I listened to it on a junk store record player, the kind that needed a penny balanced on the stylus so it didn’t skip all over the record.
Let me share one more childhood musical memory. I’d be in the back seat of the car, and my dad and my brother Salvelinas would be in the front seat and we’d be on our way up to some little trout stream somewhere. We were always chasing trout. Now maybe my memory of this is clouded by time, but it seems to me my dad and my brother would be singing Wreck of the Old 97 off key at the top of their lungs as we’d catapult down the highway. To this day I still know all the lyrics to Old 97. Here’s the great Hank Snow.
That was yesterday. I wouldn’t trade a minute of those days.
With Movember just weeks away, I decided this year I would participate. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to grow a moustache for the month of November to support men’s health initiatives. I haven’t done much in the way of fundraising before – I’m more often on the coughing up the cash end of things – but this year I thought I’d jump in and give it a go. I’ve also never grown a moustache that hasn’t been attached to a beard before. For me it has always been an all or nothing kind of deal. It’s going to be a fashion departure (look out). So today I registered and made a page and started it off by making my own donation.
I hope some of you will support this effort and go to my page and make a wee donation. I’ll be reminding you all as we get close to Movember and through the month. Growing starts Movember 1. Thanks!
I was contacted recently on this blog by a fellow looking for someone to lead a mushroom walk up in cottage country. It’s getting right toward the end of our season here, but I agreed to do the walk on Saturday, and hopefully we’ll find some interesting mushrooms and some tasty edibles. I am not a mycologist. It’s just a hobby for me. I enjoy trying to identify mushrooms and I enjoy collecting tasty edibles for the table. I can identify quite a few species but there are hundreds and hundreds of different species in our woods. I’m sure we’ll find all kinds of things I won’t be able to identify – and a bunch of mushrooms I’m familiar with as well. These folks are pretty smart in seeking out someone to help them ID mushrooms. Even though I’m not a pro naturalist or mycologist, I’m sure by sharing some of my knowledge and experience, I can help a few people begin to learn for themselves.
Quite a number of people have found this blog by searching for info about Ontario mushrooms. I’d like to take a moment to remind people to be really careful about eating any mushrooms you pick in the woods – unless you’re 100% sure you know what you’ve got and you know it’s safe to eat. Also, even mushrooms known to be generally safe can cause stomach upset in some people, and certain edibles are more likely to do this than others. If you have identified a mushroom and you’re sure of the ID and you want to eat it, but sure you first cook up a little bit and eat that, and see how your body reacts – before enjoying more of the mushrooms.
Regular visitors here at the land of milk and honey know that our older Newfoundland, Ellie Mae, has had problems with her back right leg – to the point where she couldn’t put any weight on it at all. We had X-rays done, and she was examined by an orthopedic specialist. They looked for every kind of problem including cancer. In the end, they could not diagnose the problem and sent us off with an assortment of pain meds. She responded to the meds very well and in a few days she was walking without any – or much difficulty. As we ran out of first one kind and then a second kind of pain pills, she started to limp again, so we re-upped her prescriptions and now she’s back on Metacam liquid and two varieties of capsules. After a few days back on the meds, she’s once again going for walks and not limping.
For now, we’re going to simply keep her on the pain medication and keep her on reduced exercise. We’re also cutting back a little on her food intake, hoping to take off several pounds – less weight can only help with her mobility.
If it ain’t there when I get back,
I’ll raise hell in the Cumberland Gap.
There are about as many versions of this tune as there are banjo pickers. In fact, it’s played in most of the various clawhammer tunings, including one known as Cumberland Gap tuning.
Here’s Wade Ward…
Here’s Donald Zepp
Tim Rowell
Even the bluegrass guys muscle in on the action…here are Flatt and Scruggs
The following is from the stats for this blog, showing search terms that landed folks here at the land of milk and honey.
You would think looking at this that there are people out there who don’t know there are no edible wild mushrooms in Ontario. Quebec folks….that’s where all the good mushroom patches are. Honest.
For those who are not familiar with Jerron Paxton, he is the musician formerly known as “Blind Boy Paxton”. He is an excellent musician and singer and entertainer. If he comes to your town, I highly recommend supporting him. Here he is performing a rag called Ragged but Right
…at a local restaurant enjoying dinner (and celebrating our anniversary). It was at a fairly new Spanish place that opened up in Mimico in the spring, called LaVinia. At the next table over, a guy takes out his wallet and says to anyone who will listen, “this is what happens when I open my wallet”….and he opens his wallet. As he does (I kid you not), flames shoot out of the top of his wallet. When he closes the wallet, the flames go out. He did this a few times to the delight of the patrons of the restaurant, who gave him a round of applause. This guy has more tricks up his sleeve too – he told us his jeep has a hood ornament that is hooked up to his washer fluid, so that he can make the figure on the hood ornament pee when people pass by.
Soldier’s Joy is well known as an Old Time fiddle tune, but I read that it goes way back, possibly to the 1700s in Scotland and Ireland. It has a fantastically catchy melody. I can tell you it’s a fun one to play on clawhammer banjo.
Here’s the Flying Folk Army, having a great time with it…
Now here’s Doc Watson with David Holt on clawhammer…
Soldier’s Joy is also a great square dance tune….the Whiskey Bent Valley Boys
Finally, here’s Fred Coon with a lovely solo clawhammer version
27th Street 