My Music

One bellows is blown out. As John Lennon said "give me a tuber and I'll blow through it"
(give me a straw and I'll make it sing.)

Rev. Jesse Jones Jr. (age 87), Stanley Rufus Burton (age 70), Prof. Ryan Garrett Dingus (age 43). All Great Grandchildren of Samuel Patton Keith (1829-1902). Well this is unedited 1st take raw footage shot from a projection screen on my iphone just to test the conceptualization of the short film. We hadn't met in 18 years let alone rehearsed!

Recorded with some friends in the dining room at my former Appalachian certified organic mountain farm in 2008. It's all gone now, to feed a nearby coal-fired powerplant. This song is over 500 years old btw....

Featuring stills of the long gone Doc Williams Farm (1790) and the late great Christopher "Slick" Mullins (1971-2020).

Also recorded in the same session in the dining room of the long gone Doc Williams house (1790) in Dickensonville, Va. (2008). This song was first published in 1803.

Tuning is FDGCD. I learned this version of the popular traditional tune from the living legend Lee Sexton, of Letcher County, Kentucky about 15 years ago.
The vintage banjo is signed by the late Dr. Ralph Stanley and the late Mike Seeger. I never asked Lee to sign it-I was humbled enough to be his friend...

Recorded by Norman Blake (1976), Waide Mainer's Mountaineers (1936), Earl Johnson (1926), and many others.

Hadn't played the piano in a while, thought I'd give it a try see if I still got it...

my take on the 1964 and 1998 versions. The 1959 Harmony is my "Trigger". I wish she was a 1932 Martin like Willie's but I still love her just as much, and she loves me just the same.

This is an excerpt from the larger file just released. I'm going to edit the medeley a little better and put it back up.

Recorded at my Mountain Farm in summer '07. This is an old Sacred Harp tune which Sarah reworked into a coal mining union anthem in the 1930's during the Bloody Harlan, Kentucky Mining War. Played through the 36 Watt 1959 Magnovox's 1959 Motorola ext cabinet.

We learned this from Doc Watson & his Grandmother on "The Watson Family" album c. 1973.

We learned this one from my cousin, the Rev. Jesse Jones of Castlewood, Va. He recorded it in 2003 for Castle Records.

The Oldest of the British Broadsides. A copy in the Bodlean Library at Oxford bears a copyright of 1556.....

The late Mike Seeger helped me finally get Dock's unique fingerstyle before he passed in 2009 at the Dock Boggs Festival in Norton, Va. He remembered that he signed my banjo years before after pestering him about his historic recordings for the Smithsionian in 2004. We went to a private room and he gave me some private lessons. They were recorded, but the man who recorded them disappeared and never mailed the tape as promised...

Tuning F#DGAD

If the characteristic buzzing on the 'D' run sounds familiar-it's because the original song was recorded with this exact model of guitar made of Spruce and Maple. In fact it was Bob Dylan's guitar (pictured on the cover of Nashville Skyline) that George Harrison had borrowed for this recording session in early 1968. Mine isn't that old but still replicates the distinctive buzz on the 'D' run of one of my favorite Beatles songs.

Inspired by tonight's first Harvest Moon of 2019: Harvest Moon (Harvest Moon; 1991), Old Man (Harvest; 1971), Motion Pictures (On The Beach; 1973), Ambulance Blues (On The Beach; 1973)

None

I haven't played much guitar in the last few months. I picked her up tonight and she sounded good again so I thought I'd give it a try. I've sold about 9 guitars in the last year as I became more disheartened with my playing (I lost 2 inches from my ring finger several years ago and it's been a struggle just to get back to where I was ten years earlier), but the one guitar I always wanted and fell in love with at first sight was a 1950's Harmony Sunburst Archtop and she's a keeper for life just like my vintage banjo, piano, and autoharp.

He actually learned it from Sam Chaptman who recorded it in 1929 for Paramount records.

Just some friends playing old songs after dinner. We learned this version from Doc Watson & Jeanie Ritchie @ Folk City 1960. But it turns out they learned it from the 2nd Carter Family version from 1935.