My LIttle Georgia Rose

     One thing you can do to create controversy is to start a conversation about whether Old Time musicians ought to play Bluegrass or not. This is a bit like Hatfields fraternizing with McCoys, so watch out or you might get hit!

    On the other hand, many of the casual listeners are not even aware of the difference.  If the band has a banjo, that usually signals "Bluegrass" to many casual fans. 

    So what is the difference?  Well, you get different answers from different people, but to me the main difference is that bluegrass is characterized by a fingerpicked banjo (a style invented by Earl Scruggs, imho, with later styles emerging thereafter).    Bluegrass became stylized around 1945 when Earl and guitar player Lester Flatt joined mandolin player Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys.   Hence Bluegrass often has a guitar lead.  By contrast,  Old Time  has a rhythmic "clawhammer" style banjo, and usually a fiddle lead.  This music existed before bluegrass.  Not everyone agrees, but I believe Old Time is more conducive to jams than other styles, because it is easier to blend several clawhammer banjos, whereas the Scruggs style is so overpowering that it is hard to have more than one banjo player in the group.

So that brings us to the next point.  Is it kosher for Old Time jams to jam to songs from Bill Monroe, the father of Bluegrass? 

At the Trolley stop, we've started to do My Little Georgia Rose, with Ryan playing lead vocals and guitar.  However, we still play it with an Old Time sound, usually with two or three guitars and a couple of clawhammer banjos.  I'm by no means an authority, as probably the weakest musician in our group, but in my humble opinion it works very well and the fan response has been great.

However, I do have a few observations to share about the great Bill Monroe.  One thing about his songs is that often the sentiment doesn't match the song.  For example, Little Georgia Rose tells about a sweet young woman that the singer has a big crush on. It is a very sweet and sentimental lyric.

But the melody is completely different.  It's a very powerful melody, almost like a hymn.  Let's just say that you could play it for the Heavyweight Champion of the World as easily as some little sweetheart in George!   In particular, the chorus is sung by a lot of power, both by Bill Monroe back in the day, and by the Trolley Stoppers today.  We really boom "She's MY LITTLE GEORGIA ROSE!"   This is actually not that unusual in Bill Monroe's songs. Check out his version of Shady Grove (Ray Hicks has two great version on his new album http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_2039956 Shady Grove 2 is the more traditional version, while Shady Grove 1 is based on the Monroe version).  The line "I'm going back to Harlan!" makes it sound llike something dramatic is about to happen.  

      Once you get your mind around that little quirk, the rest of it starts to hang together.  The fact is, Monroe may be considered the Father of Bluegrass to many (though in my humble opinion Earl Scruggs was the single most influential individual, albeit in Monroe's band), but his songs are certainly amenable to the Old Time style. 

     At the Trolley Stop, we play this in the key of C. The Bill Monroe video, which comes to us courtesy of the Grand Ole Opry circa 1957, is in the key of B-flat, meaning the guitar needs to be capo'ed at the fourth fret to play along. 
  
     So for what it's worth, my take is, heck yeah we can do Bill Monroe songs in an Old Time jam.  It works great with a fiddle lead and a couple of clawhammer banjos playing along side. Just don't use no Moog synthesizers or nothin', y'hear?

 

My Little Georgia Rose
Written and recorded by Bill Monroe

                     G(C)      C(F)            G(C)

Now come and listen to my story

   G(C)                         D(G)

A  story that I know is true

                 G(C)         C(F)          G(C)  

About a Rose that blooms in Georgia

        G(C)        D(G)                      G(C)

With a hair of gold and a heart so true

        C(F)                                          G(C)

Way down past the Blue Ridge Mountains 

 G(C)                                  D(G)

Way down where tall pines grow

G(C)                                       C(F)

Lives my sweetheart of the mountains

G(C)             D(G)                  G(C)

She's my little Georgia Rose 

Her mother left her with another
A care free life she had planned
The baby now is a lady
The one her mother could not stand

Chorus

We'd often sing those songs together
I watch her do her little part
She'd smile at me when I would tell her
That she was my own sweetheart 

All Night Long (Richmond Blues)

     All Night Long, which is also known as the All Night Long Blues or the Richmond Blues, is a great jam tune.  It's a very simple blues progression, and the chorus only has three words, so even I can remember it. At  Morgantown Brewing Company, we played it in the key of G, while at the Trolley Stop in Dayton Ohio, we played it in the key of C.  

Dan Gellert from Dayton way, nails Richmond Blues at Clifftop, 2013.  

Burnett and Rutherford recorded All Night Long in 1928.  They are actually in the key of B-flat, which is the Antichrist key for intermediate level players (one way out is to try the capo on 3rd and play as if were the key of G). 

Clarence Tom Ashley,  the fellow holding the guitar, and the Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers performed a version of All Night Long, also in the late 1920's.  Ashley would eventually become friends with a young Doc Watson and perform together at various venues including the Newport Folk Festival  in the early 1960s.   A Folkways version by Clarence Tom and Doc is linked here (for whatever reason I'm not able to imbed it in the blog):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ77jez37Mo

The lyrics are not particularly sophisticated. They tell  the story of a fellow (with a wife and family) who left home in order to pursue some other woman.  "I coulda been sleeping in mama's bed" is referring to an ex-wife and not to be taken literally (unless of course, the composer has even more problems than the average blues singer!).  And, as is typical in a blues song, the woman is blamed for everything.  "On account of you....I left my home...I'd rather be dead than be treated this way."

This is a more recent version, and has tap dancing accompaniment.  This is guaranteed to help your sense of rhythm! 

Here's a version from John Heneghan (guitar) and Eden Brower (resonator uke + legs) and the East River String Band with some help from Robert Crumb (Cheap Suit Serenaders), Pat Conte (Canebreak Rattlers & Legendary Otis Brothers), Dom Flemons (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Eli Smith, Craig Judelman & Walker Shepard (The Dust Busters), Ernesto Gomez (Brotherhood Of The Jug Band Blues).

G   C  G   G   Burnett and Rutherford  =  C    F   C   C

G   D  G   G   (capo on 3)                    =  C    G   G   C

G  C   G   G                                         =   C   F    C   C

G  D   G   G                                         =   C   G    G  C

***********************************************************

Honey all night long, Baby all night long
Got the Richmond Blues, Baby all night long

I’m going to the depot
Look on the board
If the train ain’t here
Somewhere's on the road Well I left the country
And I moved to town
That's when my baby
Was done and gone.

Honey all night long, Baby all night long,
Got the Richmond Blues, Baby all night long.
 (Fiddle) 

If I’d have minded
What mama said
I could-a been sleeping
In Mama’s bed

Me being young
And foolish too
I left my home
On account of you.

On account of you,
On account of you
I left my home
On account of you.

I'd rather be dead;
And in my grave
Than be in this town
Treated this a-way.

All night long, All night long,
All night long, All night long.

Ain’t got no woman
Ain't got no kin
Ain't got nobody
To be bothered with.

All night long, All night long,
All night long, All night long.

(Fiddle break)

So if I live
And don’t get killed
Gonna make my home
In Louisville.

All night long, all night long
All night long, From midnight on.

(Fiddle break)

All night long, All night long
All night long, All night long.

(Fiddle break) 

Welcome to the Old Time Jam at the Trolley Stop

     Every Wednesday night at 930, a group of music lovers gathers at the historic Trolley Stop restaurant and bar in the Oregon Arts District in Dayton Ohio, 530 E. Fifth Street, 937-461-1101. We play Old Time string music, which loosely speaking is made up of the old folk songs that came to us from the British Isles, and which were modified by the early American settlers.

    Please bring your instrument, pull up a chair and join us if you like, or if you prefer just sit for a spell and we'll entertain you.  

    I'm a newcomer to the group, having moved back to the Dayton area after living in Morgantown, West Virginia the past nine years or so.  In West Virginia I picked up my guitar which had lain in a closet for some 30 years or so.  I took lessons from Dave Asti, a brilliant musician who happens to play banjo and mandolin professionally for the Hillbilly Gypsies.  Dave plays bluegrass but also plays Old Time as well as other styles. 

    It turns out that Morgantown is a major world power in the area of Old Time music, and I was fortunate enough to find out that there are several jams that meet weekly, including the Brew Pub jam on Wednesday nights, Percival Pickers on Tuesday at (where else) Percival Hall on the WVU campus,  Elmer Rich's jam at the Senior Center in Westover, and Irish music at the Blue Moose on Friday night.  So I made a lot of friends and learned a lot about music.  

   I'm not particularly strong musically, but I'm interested in learning about the songs that people play, and so for a couple of years, I've been posting in a blog called the Morgantown Old Time Music Jam Wednesday Night at the Brew Pub.  It's been a way to kind of organized the songs that I'm working on, and to share some information.  It's also been interesting because people from around the world follow it.  

    Now however, my job situation has led me to pull up stakes and move back to the Dayton Ohio area.  I was thinking I would have to learn some other type of music, but amazingly enough there is a very strong jam every Wednesday Night at the Trolley Stop.  Organizers are Rick Good (banjo), Sharon Leahy (bass and guitar) and Sharon's son Ben Cooper (fiddle and bass). Rick and Sharon have worked together in diverse venues such as Rhythm and Shoes as well as Shoefly.

You can read about Rick and Sharon here:

http://www.leahygood.com/ 

  They are joined by regulars Lynn (mando), Israel (bass), Big Ben (fiddle), Rick Donahoe (guitar), Ryan on guitar and vocals, and little old me on 12 string baritone guitar.  We might be joined by several others on any given night.    There are some ridiculously talented people at the Jam, and others who are just ridiculous, like me.  The thing about Old Time musicians however, is that they are about nicest people that you could ever meet.  You would never guess that they are famous or acclaimed for their work (which they are).  

   I really think that there is something profound that happens when you sit down with a group of people and play music together.  Perhaps this is something that God wants us to do as part of living in a community.  It makes you feel connected in a very special way, almost like an extended family. 

   

   I plan to stay with this hobby for as long as I'm able, and if there is a way that I can help others to discover the joy of music making I will certainly do so.  This blog may be a modest step in that direction.    I hope it provides a little insight about the songs, and if I can supply some tips for the beginning or intermediate players, I'll try to share what I know.

  In the meantime, I'll share a few videos I made last week.  Dan Gellert came to the jam and led us in a few new tunes (new to me that is).  

 Here's a song I don't know. One of the weird things about Old Time musicians is that they can generally play songs that they don't know, as long as the leader knows it. 

  Here's another song I don't know.

                                 

This one is Old Mose (thanks Dan!).

                                And another...