A cold has gotten the best of my voice (what little of it there is) the past week, so I took the opportunity to dust off this chestnut of old-time three-finger banjo. The original recording by Frank Jenkins is a real masterpiece - like a lot of my favorite music, it seems simpler than it really is, and once you get inside the tune, there are all kinds of surprises waiting for you… maybe it takes a real banjo nerd to appreciate that aspect of it, so it doesn’t hurt that it’s a pretty tune.
I’ll look forward to the day when I can put as personal (and professional!) a stamp on it as did Mr. Jenkins. For now, this is where I’m at with it.
babtist-shout.mp32 Comments
Just shameful… the site basically dormant since October! We have managed to do a couple of interesting things in the intervening months - visited our friends Nate and Liz in Virginia (Nate Layne is one of my favorite living singers & banjo pickers) and visited the curator of the Secret Museum of Mankind (also one of my favorite living singers, banjo pickers, fiddlers and guitar players). Even got to see my friend Ari play a fantastic gig in Brooklyn this weekend.
Things are just now starting to lighten up at work, which is kinda nice, so maybe Kim and I can get back into a regular playing schedule. In the meantime, I’ve taken advantage of my musical solitude to get back into banjo and to listen in particular to Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb. Roscoe is a topic for another day - Dock is on my mind today.
I started off being fascinated with “False Hearted Lovers’ Blues,” and worked it out, more or less, playing it for anyone who would listen (or act like they were listening). After playing it a while, I couldn’t help but notice that even though it had the same basic melodic contour as Dock’s “Country Blues,” it didn’t have quite the same tight integration between the singing and the banjo playing. I started listening more closely to “Country Blues,” and started to get pretty discouraged… anybody with any sense probably should - it really is a signature piece. The vocal is delivered with pure matter-of-fact-ness… no posturing or over-emoting… and the banjo playing is crisp. Best of all, the way the two interact is a small miracle - Dock has a way of making his vocal phrases longer or shorter and perfectly accompanies his own whims. That was what challenged me the most - getting the whole song to genuinely breathe will take a lot longer than just the week or so I’ve spent on it so far.
Here are the words to the recording Dock made in 1927. One convenient thing about songs like this is that the relationships between verses are not particularly linear, so if you remember them in the wrong order (guilty as charged), it doesn’t matter too much. In the sixth verse, Dock sings a word which sounds to me like “hainted.” Googling it suggests that it’s an Appalachian colloquialism meaning “haunted.” ymmv
Country Blues (Hustling Gamblers) - Dock Boggs
Come all you good time people
While I’ve got money to spend
Tomorrow might be Monday
And I’ll neither have a dollar nor a friend
When I had plenty of money, good people
My friends were all standing around
Just as soon as my pocket book was empty
Not a friend on earth to be found.
Last time I seen my little woman, good people
She had a wine glass in her hand
She was drinking down her troubles
With a low-down sorry man
Oh, my daddy taught me a-plenty, good people
My mama, she taught me more
If I didn’t quit my rowdy ways
Have trouble at my door
I wrote my woman a letter, good people
I told her I’s in jail
She wrote me back an answer
Saying “Honey, I’m a-coming to go your bail”
All around this old jailhouse is [hainted], good people
Forty dollars won’t pay my fine
Corn whiskey has surrounded my body, poor boy
Pretty women is a-troubling my mind
Give me corn bread when I’m hungry, good people
Corn whiskey when I’m dry
Pretty women a-standing around me
Sweet heaven when I die
If I’d a-listened to my mama, good people
I wouldn’t have been here today
But a-drinking and a-shooting and a-gambling
At home I cannot stay
Go dig a hole in the meadow, good people
Go dig a hole in the ground
Come around all you good people
And see this poor rounder go down
When I am dead and buried
My pale face turned to the sun
You can come around and mourn, little woman
And think the way you have done