Mama Tain’t Long ‘Fore Day (Revisited)

Happy Monday, folks!  Of course it’s time for some blues again to get your day started right.  I had to think about a blues song that wouldn’t be too “dissonant” with Valentine’s Day, & I settled on “Mama Tain’t Long ‘Fore Day” because Eberle likes my take on it.  What better reason can there be than that?

“Mama Tain’t Long ‘Fore Day” as played by yours truly has appeared on Robert Frost’s Banjo before.  About a year ago, I did a performance video of this song using a cigar box resonator guitar.  I enjoyed the cigar box guitar, & it’s a really well-made & good sounding instrument (made by Big Daddy of Back Porch Mojo), but in the long run I found it limiting—I just couldn’t get used to only having four strings & really couldn’t get the sound I wanted.  My guitar style relies heavily on using the two bass strings for a foundation & I guess I was a bit lost without them.  But have no fear: the cigar box resonator guitar is still with us.  I passed it along to Eberle who is thinking up all sorts of fun & unusual uses for it!

Anyway, my earlier version of the song was in the key of D, but I think E really is a better match for my voice, so I’m playing the Gold Tone resonator guitar tuned to open D but capoed up to E.  At one time, open E was a fairly common tuning, but since it involves taking a few strings above standard pitch I’m leery of it both in terms of potential for string breakage & also strain on the guitar neck.  But then, caution has often been my undoing!

“Mama Tain’t Long ‘Fore Day” is by Blind Willie McTell, a great guitarist from Georgia who made close to 150 recordings between 1927 & 1956—the majority of these were made in the late 20s thru mid 30s.  McTell played a 12-string guitar & was one of the major exponents of what is called “Piedmont picking,” a form of fingerstyle playing that was prevalent along the East Coast.  He played some songs with a slide too, & “Mama Tain’t Long ‘Fore Day” was one of those.  In fact, this song comes from his very first recording session in October 1927.  I believe that McTell played this song in G.

Hope you enjoy my humble version!

“Moon Goin’ Down”

Happy Monday, folks!  Hope your weekend went swimmingly & that you return to the week full of renewed vim & vigor.  But if you need a little extra something to get you going, here’s the Monday Morning Blues for your enjoyment.

These days the Monday Morning Blues is an easy post for me because I’ve been recording a lot & have somewhere close to two dozen songs at my disposal, with more on the way.  In case you missed the earlier post about this, I’ll be happy to have at least one CD & quite probably two for sale at gigs this summer.  I don’t expect this to bring in anything more than mad money, but every little bit helps.

Today’s selection is by one of my favorite Delta blues musicians, Charlie Patton.  Patton was one of the first wave of recorded Delta blues players, & he waxed 57 songs at four sessions between 1929 & 1934, including a memorable 1930 session in Grafton, WI where Son House, Willie Brown & Louise Johnson were also present.  In fact, Patton maintained friendships with House & Brown, & the latter duetted with Patton on several of his records, including Patton’s recording of today’s song, “Moon  Goin' Down.” There’s an excellent concise online biography of Patton by Elijah Wald here.  I’m quite intrigued by Wald’s take on the old-time blues scene as evinced in this article & in his excellent book, Escaping the Delta, but for a different view, you can check out Robert Palmer’s seminal work, Deep Blues.

Obviously, my arrangement of “Moon Goin’ Down” is different than the original—for one thing, it’s not a duet!  Patton played the song in open G tuning, while I’m playing it on my Regal resonator in drop D tuning capoed up so that the actual key is E.  This tune has been in my repertoire for a while, & I always enjoy playing it.   

Hope you like it too!

Music From Plum Alley (& Highway 61)

"Aerial" view of the Boss workstation

A happy Wednesday & a happy February to you.  Not being a fan of snow & cold weather, I can’t say I’m sad to see January in the rearview mirror, tho it’s true that at least around these parts we easily have another four weeks plus of sketchy weather on the horizon.

On the other hand, one thing I can say for this winter: it’s gotten me recording like I’ve never recorded before as a soloist.  Since recording is a major activity right now, I thought you folks might like a look at the little home recording studio we have set up—Plum Alley Music.  We use a Boss BR 1200 workstation which, without getting into esoterica such as “virtual tracks,” gives us the capacity to record 12 tracks on any given song.   Truth is, tho, I like live sound, & I never do any over-dubbing.  I play a full guitar style as it is & I like recording songs as I perform them. 

Recording set up, with the 3 instruments I'm using: L-R: Regal Resonator, Gold Tone Resonator, Windsor Banjo

So my set-up involves two mikes, a Shure 57 Beta for the guitar or banjo & an AKG D880 for the voice.  We also have a nice Shure KSM27 condensor, & I’ve experimented with a one-mike set-up, but I like using two since it gives some flexibility in adjusting the sound after the recording is done—the voice & guitar are on separate tracks & can be adjusted (mostly) independently of each other—there’s some spill over from one track to the other simply because the mikes are close together.  After the volume is adjusted or “EQ’d,” reverb added, etc., the tracks are “bounced” to a mixed stereo track.  Why is this called “bouncing?”—no idea, tho I know it dates back to the days of analog tape recording, because you could “bounce” with a four-track machine.  At any rate, all this is done on the Boss.

I could do the rest of the work on the Boss, but I’m used to a program called Cool Edit 2000.  As the software name suggests, this is not a state of the art program, but it is a very good one, & it can do far more than I’d ever need.  So I complete the editing process on the computer.  Besides my familiarity with the program, I like the visual interface, which is much more clear than on the small Boss screen. 

"Highway 61" in graphic form

The photo of the Cool Edit interface shows the song “Highway 61” by Mississippi Fred McDowell.  It’s a great slide tune, & one of the 15 songs I currently have in the can.  You can hear my take at the end of the post.

Enjoy!

"I Know You Rider"

When I first started the Monday Morning Blues series—at its inception, a series of video performances, not mp3s—the last thing I expected was to get a song request.  But sure enough, on Friday I received a message from the redoubtable Citizen K, a longtime, staunch follower of this blog, saying that he & Roy (of the wonderful blog Roy’s World) would like my take on the old blues song, “I Know You Rider.”  Citizen K. wrote about the song on his eponymous blog that day—which you can check out here.

I knew the song, & I’d casually considered it for my repertoire, but had never really sat down to figure out an arrangment of it.  Based on a comment Roy made, I decided to look up Hot Tuna’s version—which, I admit, I didn’t know, but was able to find (of course) on the interweb.  I’d known the Grateful Dead’s version since high school days, & more recently I’d become familiar with another version of similar vintage, namely a recording by Judy Henske.  This is available on the box set Big Judy put out by Rhino Records & produced by our friend Cheryl Pawelski.  Henske does a powerhouse version of the song that I like a lot. 

But I don’t have Judy Henske’s voice & I don’t have a bunch of folks singing harmony (plus the high lonesome sound is really not my strong suit!), so I had to come up with a solo arrangement that suited what I can do.  I actually tried a few different options: banjo; slide style guitar—but finally settled on playing it on guitar in standard tuning.  So this is the Regal resonator played straight up. 

The chord progression of “I Know You Rider” is quite interesting—very different from any standard blues. I’m playing it in the key of E, & the progression goes E/D/A/E for the two repeating lines, then G/D/G/D/E for the third line.  This bears no relationship to any other tune I know & it’s fun to play. 

So, thanks to Citizen K & Roy for the request—hope you all enjoy my version of “I Know You Rider.”

“Poor Lazarus”

Hope you’re ready for the Monday Morning Blues—yes, the new week is upon us already.  After a weekend off, I’m hoping to come back to Robert Frost’s Banjo rejuvanted & ready to go.

Today’s song is something a bit different—“Poor Lazarus” is sometimes described as a “spiritual,” but is more likely a “field song” or a work song that was sung by groups a capella in the midst of their daily tasks.  In fact, in 1959 Alan Lomax made a recording of the song by one James Carter & other prisoners at the Mississippi State Peniteniary; this recording was later used in the 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou.  Various versions of the song have been covered by Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, the Carolina Chocolate Drops (an a capella version featuring Rhiannon Giddens) & others.

Given the title, you might expect “Poor Lazarus” to be Biblical, but the song doesn’t refer to either of the Gospel stories involving a character named Lazarus.  In fact, the story comes from Alabama:

Another "bad man" was an Alabama turpentine worker named Lazarus. According to the legends he worked and lived in the piney wood mountains of northern Alabama working in the turpentine mills. Some dispute over pay caused Lazarus to tear up the place and "walk the table," a practice of jumping upon the dinner table at the factory and walking it's length placing one's foot in every plate. He then broke into the commissary and stole the payroll. This would, of course, cause a riot, and for this action the "High Sheriff" was called in the arrest "Poor Lazarus." The sheriff sent out his deputies and they cornered Lazarus "up between two mountains" where they gunned him down. They hauled his remains back to the commissary where they laid him out and sent for his family but he apparently died before they could get there.

from the page James "Sparky" Rucker: BULLIES, BADMEN, and the BLUES

My version is accompanied by guitar—my Regal resonator tuned to Drop D but capoed at the third fret to make the sounding key F—however, as I typically do with the drop D tuning, I tend to play the D chord as neither fully major nor minor (but definitely shaded toward the latter).  There’s also a quick jump to the A chord (again, neither major nor minor).  I had a lot of fun doing this one, but it’s a workout in some ways.  Hope you like it!

Homegrown Radio – Caroline Pond – 1/21/11

Happy Friday everybody!  We’re celebrating the day here on Robert Frost’s Banjo with music from a terrific musician, Caroline Pond.  Ms. Pond has been performing & touring for over 15 years, & is the front woman for Snake Oil Medicine Show.  She also plays with an old time band called Tater Diggers & shares a band with Ami Worthen(from Mad Tea Party)  called Sugar & Spice. Caroline started playing violin at age 7 years old & has been playing ever since.  Singing & playing ukulele are also gifts that she shares across the world.

I'd also recommend checking out Ms. Pond's delightful blog, Caroline Pond's Earth Adventures.

You can find cds from Snake Oil Medicine Show & the Tater Diggers on CDBaby (follow the links on the band names). 

Let's see what Caroline has to say about today's song:

The second song is called Freedom Song written by Luc Reynaud.  He wrote it for the children of the Hurricane Katrina disaster when he was in New Orleans.  Jason Mraz discovered this song, and he sings it too—and he went to Africa for the Free The Slaves foundation and heard kids sing this song.  It's so sweet that I wanted to sing it too.

This is "just" Caroline Pond & ukulele; it's a total delight.  & as an added bonus you can check out last week's song, "Fall On My Knees" in case you missed it (Caroline singing & playing fiddle).  I'm very impressed with Caroline Pond's musicianship & it's been a real treat to have her on Homegrown Radio.  I'm hoping to feature another of Ms Pond's songs next week, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, please enjoy "Freedom Song"!

“Black Snake Moan”

It’s the Monday Morning Blues!  & yes, if you have any knowledge of US roots music, you’re saying, “What gives?  This is supposed to be Jimmie Rodgers month, & he sure didn’t sing 'Black Snake Moan.'"

& you’d be right, of course.  But I claim the bloggers’ prerogative to change horses in midstream, as it were.  Fact is, while being a bit on the housebound side due to the weather conditions here in Idaho, I’ve tried to put the time to good use by concentrating on that recording project I’ve been putting off for ages.  In a way, the Monday Morning Blues songs for November & December really jump-started the project, even tho I’ll probably be using only a few of those tunes at most on the finished CD.  But the fact is, even in a full-on Idaho January, I have only so much time to record, & the Jimmie Rodgers’ songs I’d been thinking of really didn’t fit with the overall plan—I probably will use “T.B. Blues,” however.  So far, I have at least a dozen songs that I’m satisfied with in terms of performance.  I’m still working on mastering the tracks.

Today’s selection, “Black Snake Moan” is a tune by Blind Lemon Jefferson, one of the biggest blues stars of the 1920s.  He came up as a street singer, but became quite popular on the strength of 79 singles recorded between 1925 & 1929 (the year he died, aged only 35 or 36).  It’s recorded using my Goldtone resonator tuned in open D (of course) & capoed up to the key of E; no slide—just fingerstyle.

Hope you enjoy it!

Homegrown Radio – Caroline Pond – 1/14/11

It’s Friday—& guess what?  After a month & change, we’re back with Homegrown Radio!

I’ll tell you upfront: it’s been worth the wait to have an artist of Caroline Pond’s caliber.  Ms Pond hails from North Carolina, & is a member of a really thriving music community there—another favorite act that I wrote about on Robert Frost’s Banjo, the Mad Tea Party comes from the same town, & in fact Ms Pond counts that band’s members, Ami Worthen & Jason Krekel, among her friends. 

I first ran across Caroline Pond on Twitter & became very intrigued when she started tweeting about a cross-country road trip music tour with her mother along as companion, co-pilot & roadie.  This struck me as a truly remarkable thing, & I was fascinated to follow the tour’s progress on Twitter & on Caroline’s fine blog, Caroline Pond’s Earth Adventures. 

As a bio: Caroline Pond is the front woman for Snake Oil Medicine Show.  She has been performing & touring for over 15 years.  She also plays with an old time band called Tater Diggers & shares a band with Ami Worthen(from Mad Tea Party)  called Sugar & Spice. Caroline started playing violin at age 7 years old & has been playing ever since.  Singing & playing ukulele are also gifts that she shares across the world.

You can find cds from Snake Oil Medicine Show & the Tater Diggers on CDBaby (follow the links on the band names).

So, Caroline Pond emailed me earlier this week to say:

It's a snowy January Monday morning & I have time to make some music.  I happened to get my little Iphone and record 2 songs.  The first one is a traditional song called “Fall on my Knees.”  I just do it solo style, fiddle and vocals.

I know you’re gonna love this one!

“Blue Yodel #5"

A happy Monday to you.  The Monday Morning Blues is a trifle late this morning thanks to technical glitches, but as is so often the case, a combination of re-booting & dogged persistance have paid off.  I chalk much of this up to January, which always seems to be a cursed month!

Anyway, our month of Jimmie Rodgers covers continues with my take on “Blue Yodel #5.”  As Rodgers fans know, the Singing Brakeman composed & recorded 13 “Blue Yodels, starting with the song also known as “T for Texas,” which Rodgers recorded in 1927 & which became a huge hit upon its release.  The final song was titled, appropriately enough, “Jimmie Rodgers Last Blue Yodel”; this was recorded in May 1933 just over a week before his death & was released posthumously.

Rodgers was a great singer & songwriter, & his yodeling ability was top-notch.  Bob Dylan has described Rodgers’ yodeling as follows: “that famous blue yodel that defies the rational and conjecturing mind.”  Rodgers himself described his yodeling in more mundane terms as “curlicues I can make with my throat.”  Tho he used this ability in a great number of his songs, the “Blue Yodel” series is a remarkable set of songs & one that had profound effects on the development of country music & probably had influence into other music as well—just as Rodgers himself learned from the African-American stylings we call the blues, there’s every reason to believe that Rodgers’ songs had an impact on contemporary blues performers.  His songs were major hits, & it’s known that blues artists such as Muddy Waters & Howlin’ Wolf admired his work.  I’ve also seen conjecture that Rodgers may have influenced Tommy Johnson’s singing.

The yodeling is a stretch for me, but I had fun with it.  I’m playing my Gold Tone resonator tuned to an open D but capoed so that the actual key is E.  I originally intended to play this one slide style, but at the last minute I chose to go with straight fingerpicking.  Hope you enjoy it!

“T.B. Blues”

Monday is upon us once again, & after the holiday weekend, there may indeed be a few of you with the Monday Morning Blues—so I’m hear to put a musical spin on things.

I was really pleased with how the Dylan songs went last month, & was gratified by the response.  As a result, I thought I’d continue along these lines with cover versions of a new feature artist this month.  After a fair amount of deliberation, I decided to turn my attention to Jimmie Rodgers, “the Singing Brakeman,” also called “the Father of Country Music.”

Jimmie Rodgers was a phenomenon, a hit maker in his day & someone with an enduring legacy—a member of both the Country Music & Rock & Roll halls of fame—a musician who was comfortable in diverse settings & with diverse material.  Rodgers recorded with jazz greats like Louis Armstrong & Lil Hardin, yet he also laid a lot of the musical foundation for the “country sound.”  His admirers have included Merle Haggard, Gene Autry, Bob Dylan & both Howlin’ Wolf & Muddy Waters.  It may seem odd to think of hardcore bluesmen admiring Rodgers, but one thing I’d like to underline in my versions—Rodgers' blues roots ran deep.  While he ventured into sentimental material & pop stylings, Rodgers wrote a lot of songs based on good old-fashioned 12-bar blues, complete with “floating lyrics” taken from the blues tradition.

“T.B. Blues” was an autobiographical song for Jimmie Rodgers—he contracted tuberculosis at age 27 in 1924.  For a few years, he went back & forth between railroad work & entertaining—he really was a brakeman—but in 1927 his illness had progressed to a point that he could no longer work on the railroad & he became a full-time musician.  From then until his death in 1933, he made 110 recordings in the course of a brief but successful career.

Hope you enjoy my take on “T.B. Blues.”  It’s recorded slide style on my Gold Tone dobro—tuned as always to open D.   

"A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes"

Happy 2011 everyone.  Today’s post is here, bringing the conclusion to our yearlong series of Alice in Wonder Band songs.

“A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” is a fitting way to close the series, as I think it sums up what the band meant to a lot of its members.  Our singer, Deadre Chase, suggested the song, & Eberle came up with the arrangement.  This particular recording was made at a 2003 performance at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall, Idaho. 

To refresh your memory—or for those who haven’t been following the whole series—the Alice in Wonder Band was formed in 2001, with its original members being Art Troutner, Barb Dixon, Eberle Umbach, Kati Sheldon, Lois Fry & yours truly, John Hayes.  The band was formed originally to provide background music for a high school drama troupe’s production of “Antigone”(!), which was performed in December 01.  A sort of proto-Alice in Wonder Band consisted of Eberle, Lois & myself, when we provided background music for the same drama troupe’s productions of “Alice in Wonderland” in 98 (hence the band name) & “Under Milkwood” in 99.  The band began performing on its own in 2002, with our first show being at the Roseberry Folk Festival in July of that year.  By this point, Deadre Chase had joined the band as a second vocalist, & when Kati Sheldon left the band in the fall of 02 in order to focus on school, Deadre became the main singer.  Deb Cahill & Bob George joined the band in 03.  The band’s final show was December 17th 2004 (not the 18th, as I said in an earlier post). 

The line-up for any given show varied from four to eight, not counting assorted dancers, performers & guest stars.  Here are the members of the band & the instruments they played:

• Deb Cahill: Doumbek, Djembe, Conga, Percussion, Kazoo, Boomwhackers
• Deadre Chase:    Vocals
• Barb Dixon: Djembe, Conga, Percussion, Police Whistle, Washboard
• Lois Fry: Violin, Viola, Vocals, Slide Whistle
• Bob George: Clarinet, Mandolin, Guitar
• John Hayes: Bass, Plectrum & 5-String Banjos, Guitar, Assorted Ukuleles
• Kati Sheldon: Vocals, Percussion
• Art Troutner: Oboe, Soprano & Tenor Recorder, Mandolin
• Eberle Umbach: Marimba, Piano, Djembe, Melodica, Glockenspiel, Flute, Bass, Concert Ukulele

The band laid down tracks for a studio album in June 2004.  The album was called Elephant Cloudland.  While the final mixing was never completed on the tracks, they are available for free as a download from BandCamp here.

Hope you enjoy the song, & best wishes for 2011.



Photos used in the video are by: Earl Brockman, Tim Hohs, Michael Richardson, Dani Leone, Chris Leone, Wayne Brandon

"I Shall Be Released"

Happy Monday, folks.  Today is the wrap up of our Bob Dylan month here on Robert Frost’s Banjo, & I saved my biggest stretch for the last.

The song I’m covering, “I Shall Be Released,” dates from Dylan’s Basement Tapes days, & the original version to reach the public was not by Dylan at all, but the great cover version by The Band, with vocal by Richard Manuel from their 1968 album, Music from Big Pink.  Of course, one hesitates to mention Manuel’s cover in a post featuring my own very humble version!  Dylan himself released the song on his 1971 Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. II; as Dylan fans know, despite the title this double album contained some previously unreleased material, including this song.

I played the song in G clawhammer style on my old Windsor banjo—the arrangement is extemporaneous & basic.  Hope you enjoy it!

Silent Night

Christmas Day is passing—even here in the western U.S., the winter sun is low in a gray blue sky.  I must say this has been the most unusual Christmas season I can remember, but I also feel a strange peace on this Christmas afternoon, & I thought I’d share that by sharing a piece I’ve posted each year during this season since Robert Frost’s Banjo began.

It’s “Silent Night” played “classical style” (essentially like guitar fingerpicking) on a 5-string banjo.  I made this recording a few years ago, & no doubt I could play it better now, but I was satisfied with the take when I recorded it, & still don’t have any real objections to the performance—perhaps a few quibbles, but that’s it.

I will be back with a post tomorrow, most likely the final installment of the Old-Time Holiday Train. 

All the blessings of the season to you, dear readers!



Photo: The christmas song Stille Nacht, autograph (ca. 1860) by Franz Xaver Gruber (1787–1863)

The Dance of the Reed Flutes

Happy Christmas Eve to those celebrating the holiday, & a happy Friday to all.  It’s time for our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month; I probably should point out that this is the penultimate song in the series, which will wrap up in January. 

The last Alice in Wonder Band show ever was a Christmas show at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall in December 2004.  At this point, the band had five members: Art Troutner, who played oboe & mandolin; Bob George, who played clarinet, mandolin & guitar; Deadre Chase, the singer; Eberle Umbach, who at this point was playing flute, melodica, glockenspiel, & occasionally throwing in something wild like the lap steel; & yours truly,  playing guitar, baritone uke & plectrum banjo. 

I’m happy to say we went out on a high note: the show was one of our best, & I think a lot of this was thanks to some inspired arranging by Eberle; & among all her good arrangements for the show, none surpassed her distillation of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Reed-Flutes” from The Nutcracker into a piece for a quintet.  In case you’re curious, the original score calls for an orchestra with 18 distinct instruments, as follows:

• Flutes (4)
• Oboes (2)
• English Horn
• Clarinets (2)
• Bass Clarinet
• Bassoons (2)
• French Horns (4)
• Trumpet
• Tenor Trombone
• Bass Trombone
• Tuba
• Timpani
• Cymbals
• Violins (two sections of course, which could be up to 32 players)
• Violas (as many as 12)
• Cellos (as many as 10)
• Double Bass (as many as 8)

She managed to pare this down to the following:

• 1 flute
• 1 oboe
• 1 clarinet
• 1 voice
• 1 electric guitar

I don’t recall now exactly how the parts were absorbed—I do know that my guitar part drew heavily from the cello music. 

I hope you enjoy the music—it was a lot of fun to play!—& that you have a joyous holiday season.  Oh, by the way: Robert Frost’s Banjo will be on the air tomorrow with the final installment of the Old-Time Holiday Train series!



Note: All images in the video are in the public domain except the intial photo of the Nutcracker.  This photo, entitled "Nußknacker aus Seiffen," is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported by Bernd Reuschenberg
The photo at the top of the post is from the original production of The Nutcracker. Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1892.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

[I'd planned to post something about The Spring Ghazals today, but decided instead to switch into full holiday mode with the following re-post.  Also: please note that Writers Talk will return next Thursday with Dick Jones of Patteran Pages]

Today’s musical offering for Christmas Eve is one of my favorites among the traditional carols, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”  The melody has so much peace & gentleness to impart, & I’ve played it here on one of my old favorite instruments, a koa Lanikai baritone ukulele.  I don’t play the baritone uke much anymore, but it’s hard to beat for a certain soft & melodic sound, with just enough low(ish) end to create some harmony.

This tune is very popular of course, & it seems evocative too.  But as I was playing it, I began meditating on what, exactly, this song does evoke.  What is the “little town of Bethlehem” we picture when we hear this melody?  For those of us brought up in a Christian tradition, even if we no longer subscribe to the faith’s beliefs, we may well see an image of a Nativity scene divorced from any historical context.

But Bethlehem is a real place, a city on the West Bank in Israel, with a population divided between the Jewish, Christian & Islamic faiths (with a Muslim majority in the population).  This is an area of the world that could well use tranquility & peace, but the conflicts there are so deeply rooted that they sometimes seem impossible to resolve.  The territory is essentially mythic for three major religions & beyond that, conflicting historical claims spring from various wars fought over thousands of years.  By the 20th century, Bethlehem was part of the British Mandate of Palestine & was included in the state of Israel by the United Nations resolution in 1947.  The city is the site of Rachel’s Tomb, a very holy site in the Jewish faith; it also is considered the birthplace of King David, as well as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth. 

One organization that has a very hands-on approach to resolving these conflicts is Ukuleles for Peace, an organization whose mission is “reating opportunities for Jewish and Arab children to meet & become involved with one another in their daily lives."  One way the organization does this is by providing the kids with ukes so they can play music together.  Please check them out.  Is this the whole answer to the problems in that region?  Of course not; but it strikes me as the sort of grassroots movement that could have a real impact, & perhaps spread to other areas.

All the images in the slideshow are from Wiki Commons, & all are in the public domain.  They show Bethlehem & its inhabitants from the 19th thru early 20th centuries.  Hope you enjoy the music.




Pic at the top of the post:
Main entrance into Bethlehem from Jerusalem, 2005 (photo released into the public domain by Wikipedia user Zero0000)

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Happy Wednesday, folks.  In honor of the recent solstice event, & also with hope of imparting some Christmas spirit both to Robert Frost’s Banjo & to myself, a re-post of sorts: a video of yours truly playing a fingerstyle guitar arrangement of “In the Bleak Midwinter,” Holst’s lovely setting for Christina Rosetti’s poem (you can read the poem here, at WikiSource.)

I recorded the song & made the video last December when it was originally posted on this blog.  The arrangement (not original, but by Doug Sparling, with some minor variations by yours truly) is for guitar in the DADGAD tuning—so called because those are the notes of the open strings, as opposed to EADGBE in standard tuning.  The DADGAD tuning is particularly used by fingerstyle guitarists exploring British Isles folk music—the open strings taken as a whole are a “suspended chord”—one that is neither major nor minor, but hovering somewhere in between.  It’s a lovely tuning, & one that loves to have open strings ringing.  I played it on my well-loved old Washburn, which is a sweet fingerstyle instrument.

Hope the holiday season has been good to you, & that you enjoy the music.  There’ll be one more holiday tune—from the Alice in Wonder Band archives—on Friday!

From a Buick 6

A happy Monday to you all.  The Monday Morning Blues continues today with the third selection in our Bob Dylan December.

Today, I’m posting a cover of “From a Buick 6,” again from the great Highway 61 Revisited album.  This song certainly has appeal to a blues musician—I think it’s one of Dylan’s most succesful transformations of the old time blues feel into an updated lyrical presentation & (in his case) electric sound.  Because I wanted a bit of that raw sound in my version, I used the Regal resonator guitar—the metal body can be easily coaxed into a natural distortion that seems just the ticket for this song.  The guitar is tuned to drop D—for those non-guitarists out there, that means the lowest sounding string is tuned down to a D rather than an E as in in standard tuning.  The guitar is capoed, so the actual key is Eb.

Please check in on Friday, Christmas Eve, for a seasonal tune from the Alice in Wonder Band archives.  & next Monday will wrap up our Dylan feature!

Hope you enjoy it!

“Visions of Johanna”

It’s time for another Musical Monday on Robert Frost’s Banjo, & that means another Bob Dylan cover—I’m featuring Dylan songs this month on Monday mornings.

I’ve always had the highest admiration for Dylan’s 1966 release, Blonde on Blonde.  Musically & lyrically, it’s a high achievement, & has been justifiably praised as one of the best rock albums ever released.  Dylan himself likes the album—according to journalist Jules Siegel, who was present when Dylan first listened to the initial pressing, Dylan exclaimed, "Now that is religious music! That is religious carnival music. I just got that real old-time religious carnival sound there, didn't I?" 

Obviously, Blonde on Blonde, like its precursor, Highway 61 Revisited, is of great interest to anyone who likes blues music, since Dylan performed a masterful transformation of the blues in the music on both albums.  But today’s song is one of the least blues-based numbers on Blonde on Blonde.  Interestingly, Dylan proclaimed it his favorite song on the album.  I’ve always loved “Visions of Johanna.”  There’s something stark & haunted & true about the song, even when the lyrics occasionally seem mean-spirited, as in parts of the “museum” verse.

I’m playing slide style on my Gold Tone dobro, tuned as always to an open D chord; I did capo this one, so the actual key is Eb.  Hope you enjoy it!

Highway 61 Revisited

Happy Wednesday!  Given that you’ve all made it to mid-week, you probably don’t want to return to Monday, do you?  But that’s just what we’re doing here today, as we have the Wednesday edition of the Monday Morning Blues!

I had intended for my musical outings this month to be quite different.  In the past I used to do some chord solos on the uke, both the tenor & the baritone. A “chord solo” for those who don’t know is a way of playing the song’s melody using chords, so there’s also harmony underneath the melodic line.  But things have been crazy at so many levels here at Robert Frost’s Banjo central, & when I sat down to record on Sunday, I found that my uke chops are really rusty.  Putting together the series I planned would have required extra practice time I just don’t have.

So, back to the guitar.  Since I’ve been on a performance sabbatical the last couple of months I’ve experimented with taking my music in some different directions (as witness the selections in November).  One direction is the music of Bob Dylan, & I’ll be featuring his songs on the Monday Morning Blues the rest of the month.

The song “Highway 61 Revisited" comes from from Dylan’s 1965 album of the same name—& of course, the “Highway 61” of the title is the “Blues Highway”—U.S. 61 that runs from New Orleans, Louisiana up thru the Mississippi Delta region, eventually coming to an end in Wyoming, Minnesota.   Dylan said of the Highway 61 Revisited album:

“I'm not gonna be able to make a record better than that one... Highway 61 is just too good. There's a lot of stuff on there that I would listen to."
(taken from Wikipedia)

Obviously, Bob Dylan songs aren’t going to be “seasonal,” but I suspect a fair number of people would like a break from the ubiquitous holiday soundtrack!  Hope you enjoy the song.

“Gun Street Girl”

Happy Monday!  I’m back with some Monday Morning Blues, tho using the word “blues” for today’s song is a bit of a stretch.  It’s Tom Waits’ great song “Gun Street Girl” from his amazing Rain Dogs album—for my money, definitely a “desert island” selection.

If by chance you haven’t heard the original—& for that matter, the entire Rain Dogs album—you really need to do so.  Waits’ whiskey-&-cigarettes-at-4:00 a.m. voice is backed by banjo & some very cool percussion.  Of course, to say that a Waits’ song has cool percussion is stating the obvious, especially on practically all of his work from the 80s & 90s.  But since the arrangement of “Gun Street Girl” is so spare, the percussion becomes a major voice on the song, even by Waits’ standards.

For those who are interested in musical minutiae: as was the case with last week’s song, “Country Blues,” I was tempted to record this using the banjo as backing.  I tried it in the standard G tuning, playing what amounted to a D “power chord” alternating with a D suspended chord, but the key of D didn’t seem to mesh with my voice.  I re-tuned the banjo to some odd tunings in the key of F, & that didn’t seem to work either, tho the banjo part sounded weird in all the best senses of the word—there were just too many dissonances in any tuning I tried.  So I decided to vocalize this in F, but using the Regal resonator guitar in drop D tuning, with a capo on fret 3.  I love the drop D tuning for modal songs.

Next month Mondays will be a bit different—between Hank Williams, Dock Boggs & Tom Waits, these last few weeks have been pretty dire!  No Christmas tunes, but something much more light-hearted—yours truly will be dusting off the ukuleles to play you some old standards—instrumentals all!  & yes, there will be an Alice of Wonder Band song of the month on the Monday prior to Christmas—& that one will be seasonal.


If you'd like some more music—& poetry too—please check out the first installment of Music Theory for Poets on The Spring Ghazals blog.

In the meantime, hope you enjoy my take on “Gun Street Girl.”