Tunes from Matt Brown

A selection of tunes from Matt Brown, one of the rising stars in the old-time music firmament.

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Roscoe

Matt sez: “Roscoe comes to us from the great Kyle Creed of Surry County, North Carolina. The tune is named after guitar player Roscoe Russell. This one is great for dances!”
Roscoe slow

Fire on the Mountain

“This version of Fire On the Mountain is one of my all-time favorite tunes. And not enough people play it. Isham (pronounced “Ice-um”) Monday of Monroe County, Kentucky played this beautiful tune with lots of drones, and in a low cross-tuning. I’m in AEAE on this version, but you can get most of the notes (if not all of the drones) in standard tuning.”
Fire on the Mountain slow

Cumberland Gap
“This is Burnett & Rutherford’s version of the classic Cumberland Gap. It’s sweet, simple, and in G.”

Cumberland Gap slow

Matt Brown visits the Fiddle Club of the World meeting on Sunday, May 2 at 6:30pm at the Leadway Bar & Gallery (5233 N. Damen) in Chicago. Click here to register.

Filed under: Tunes by Paul | April 18, 2010 | Comments (0)

Tunes from Genevieve (Harrison) Koester

A selection of tunes from Dear Old Illinois (both a place and the life work of Genevieve’s father, Garry Harrison). Gena plays with her dad in the New Mules, a band featured at the Old Town School’s Trad Fest in January 2008. The first of these tunes is from the David McIntosh collection of folksongs from Southern Illinois from the middle of the last century. The next two are tunes Garry collected from downstate fiddlers 30 years ago.

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Across the Plains of Illinois “Source version is unaccompanied ballad singing by Ollie Barnard of Cave-in-Rock, IL. . . . I’ll sing all the words when we all get together but it has a nice tune by itself too.”

Across the Plains of Illinois slow

Sally Johnson from “Otis Reynolds of Geff, IL. There are a million versions of Sally Johnson, and most of them are very note-y and embellished. This one is the opposite. :) ” (Warning: not the version transcribed in Dear Old Illinois.)

Sally Johnson slow

Who’ll Cut the Britches? from Henry Soper of Mt. Vernon, IL. “The full title given by Mr. Soper was the verse:
Oh boy, who’ll cut the britches?
Daddy cut them out, and mammy sewed the stitches.”

Who’ll Cut the Britches? slow

Genevieve Koester will be the featured guest at the Fiddle Club of the World meeting on Sunday, April 18 at 6:30pm at the Leadway Bar & Gallery (5233 N. Damen) in Chicago. Click here to register.

Filed under: Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | April 5, 2010 | Comments (0)