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Ed Haley once told Skeets Williamson “I like to flavor up a tune so that nobody in the world could tell what I’m playing.”

And how!

(pardon this interruption, but I must take an opportunity to ensure that you appreciate the name “Skeets”. They just don’t make names like they used to.)

The intricate and expressive bowings of Ed Haley have bewitched many a fiddler over the years, perhaps notably John Hartford, who recorded two Grammy nominated albums of Haley’s tunes (and as if emulating his complex and technique-driven style wasn’t challenging enough, many of the existing recordings of Haley’s playing blurs the line between low fidelity and noise).

But those who’ve endured have found the struggle well worth the effort.

Born in Logan County, West Virginia in 1885, Haley lost his sight to the measles virus at the age of 3, but was ultimately able to channel that setback into a prodigious gift with the devil’s box.

He’s a legend in the world of old time fiddle, though his approach would be considered idiosyncratic compared to what’s most often heard these days. Rather than see a tune as a fixed entity, Haley used it as a launching point, a canvas upon which he could paint his own variations, and embellish with structural alterations.

Case in point, those of you who’ve learned the Boatman from the August 2014 Tune of the Week will find some notable melodic and structural departures from that version.

I first heard Haley’s Boatman on the banjo from Mac Benford, who recorded and released it as part of his album “Half Past Four.” Mac’s ambitious mission there was to re-create the nuances of Haley’s fiddling on the banjo (I highly recommend it – it remains one of my favorite banjo albums).

I’ve borrowed quite liberally from Mac with my version. If you’re going to steal, might as well steal from the best.

Ed Haley’s Boatman

gDGBD tuning (tuned low on the gourd), Brainjo level 3

Notes on the Tab

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes. To learn more about these, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course. Learn more about it here.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab

In doing my bit of background research to explore the meaning of this tune’s title, I found the best available explanation to have been written by none other than my fellow Georgia Jay mate Justin Manglitz, a man with some experience in the realm of animal husbandry. From a thread back in 2012 on the Banjo Hangout:

“In the antebellum South, and later in some locales, livestock were not kept in enclosures (i.e. paddocks, pastures) but were allowed to roam around freely to eat whatever they could wherever they could get it. People fenced the areas they wanted to keep stock OUT of rather than IN. this applied to both hogs and cattle (and sheep and goat somewhat less commonly). A few times a year folks would round up the animals and notch their ears or brand the young ones, pen them for butcher, or drive them to market. Yearlings in this context specifically refers to young cattle about a year old, a prime time to sale them or butcher them. Drovers of local men would drive huge herds of young cattle or hogs in masse to be separated later, mainly by ear notches, at market. It could be many hundreds of animals, all roiling around not too happy with the situation at all.”

Small world.

This is a quirky little tune, for sure.

It’s crooked, for starters, with an extra measure in the A part. Perhaps that’s a nod to the organized chaos of herding a mass of young cattle.

And then there’s the melodic “pause” that occurs in the 3rd and 4th measure of the B part, where the fiddle usually just plays a rhythmic “vamp” of sorts. I consider these two measures to be a kind of a free-for-all for the banjoist – with no melody to adhere to, you have free reign to do anything that sounds good on top of an A chord!

Some of you may note that the B part of this tune and the B part of “Cricket on the Hearth,” a tune common in bluegrass circles, are virtually identical. That’s because they are.

And that is a guitar track you hear in the background, as I thought it made a nice addition to this tune.

Hell Amongst the Yearlings

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Notes on the Tab

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes. To learn more about these, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course. Learn more about it here.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab

Reclaiming Dixie

When I was a child of about 5 or 6, swinging and singing was a favorite past-time. And I had a small handful of “go-to” songs for the occasion – my “swing set,” if you will…

“Dixie” was one of them.

I’d belt out the words as loud as I could, while my legs propelled me as high as the chains would allow (and on one occasion – which led to a fractured tibia – higher).

I’m not the only one spellbound by this Dan Emmett classic. The following was published in the New Yorker during the American Civil War:

“‘Dixie’ has become an institution, an irrepressible institution in this section of the country … As a consequence, whenever ‘Dixie’ is produced, the pen drops from the fingers of the plodding clerk, spectacles from the nose and the paper from the hands of the merchant, the needle from the nimble digits of the maid or matron, and all hands go hobbling, bobbling in time with the magical music of ‘Dixie.'”

As a kid, I knew there were parts of Southern history marked by racial tensions and bigotry. In the cloistered realm of my childhood, though, I understood those to be things of the past.

The story of the South I carried around was that we’d made some mistakes we weren’t proud of, but had learned from them and created a better place. And in my little corner of the southern U.S., the available evidence fit that narrative.

At my elementary school, children of all ethnicities and colors befriended each other without a second thought. We didn’t have to learn to see past those things, because it never occurred to us that there was something to see past.

As the black and white lines of childhood blurred into the murkier adult shades of gray, I came to realize we hadn’t all come as far as I’d thought. There were still some who wished things were still the way they’d been, who were still fighting against a world where all were equal.

And I learned that “Dixie,” one of the most beloved songs of my childhood, had been recruited as a pawn in this battle. Somewhere between the year it was penned and the year of my birth, the forces of intolerance had adopted it as their anthem.

This song that was a favorite of Lincoln, a song played at his political rallies and at the announcement of Robert E. Lee’s surrender, had, for some, become a symbol of the very thing he fought to destroy.

Dixie had been stolen from me.

Without a doubt, the story of the American South is as complicated as they come. And as is always the case, and especially true here, the broad brush never paints an accurate picture.

The worst parts of that story tells of intolerance, ignorance, and unspeakable cruelty – the worst parts of our nature.

The best parts of that story tells of openness, love, and acceptance – the best parts of our nature.

It was in the South where European and African cultures collided. Where that collision was met with open-mindedness and a generosity of spirit, innovative and brilliant new works of art emerged (at a time when such collaborations were dangerous), including musical forms (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) that would go on to grip the imaginations of people around the world.

It released an explosive burst of creativity and artistic work that continues to this day, with a scope of influence in significant disproportion to the size of the region from whence it comes.

This is the South I love.

This is the South that has produced the music that’s so dear to me, along with an instrument and playing technique that encapsulates the best of Southern culture.

This is the South that’s produced some of the world’s greatest storytellers, telling stories with a richness and depth that could’ve only emerged through this open cultural exchange.

This is the South where my friend and musical companion Justin Manglitz can take a family tradition of clandestine grain distillation, mash it up with tools and techniques of the old world, and produce some of the finest and most original brown spirits ever to trickle past the soft palate.

This is the South I sing of when I sing Dixie.

For many years, I’ve been reluctant to sing it outside of the confines of my home, but that never sat well. That felt like letting the bad guys win.

After all, Dixie was stolen from me.

It’s time to take it back.

Dixie

gCGCD tuning, Brainjo level 3

Notes on the Tab

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes. To learn more about these, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course. Learn more about it here.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab

Credit goes to Edden Hammons for this week’s tune. “Washington’s March” is another gem from the Hammons family repertoire, one that reportedly won Edden the 1939 Greenbrier Vally fiddle championship.

It’s original composer is unknown, said to have been written or simply collected by someone further down the Hammons family tree.

And while not technically a “march” in its rhythm, it is nonetheless an effective number for compelling nearby humans to move their feet.

Washington’s March

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Notes on the Tab

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes. To learn more about these, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course. Learn more about it here.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault