Expanding our repertoire

For the LCO Casino gig we did 4 sets: two at the lounge on Friday and two at the festival on Saturday. The Friday sets were about 12 songs each (45-50 minutes). For Saturday we had a longer set at noon (14 songs - almost an hour ) and short half hour set (8 songs) at 4:00. On either day we did not duplicate songs or tunes; however, their was a fair amount of overlap between the two days. For Friday, we replaced about 5 songs with two twelve string numbers, one 'new' song and a couple of 'covers' that we don't usually perform. One of the things I realized was that for us to fill more than 2 hours we'll need to expand our repertoire (We should be playing at Dulano's at some point - that goes from 8pm to midnight). Although I took Sunday as 'a day of rest', I did start looking at some material to do this. Here are some songs that I'm thinking we can revive or learn:

Gonna Lay Down my old Guitar: this is a Delmore brothers song that we've performed in the past, but it's been at least a couple of years. I can probably snazz up the guitar breaks with a little more true flat-picking - it does make a good closer. Our version is based on the one on the first Blake and Rice album.

Green Grow the Laurel: this is one that we performed at the 2007 MBOTMA Winter Weekend, but that hasn't ever quite jelled. Lynn and I did go through it while preparing for the Casino festival and it seems like we can find a way to work it up. Our version comes from Bruce Molsky - he does it with all fiddles all the time, we do it with two guitars.

Wabash Cannonball: this is one I used to do as a jam song in the 70's. It's a little hackneyed, but the version by the Delmore brothers has some verses that could give it new life (although Minnehaha is a creek, not a lake)-

There are other cities, partner, as you can plainly see

St. Paul and Minneapolis and the famous Albert Lea

The lakes of Minnehaha where the laughing waters fall

We reach them by no other than the Wabash Cannonball

New River Train: another jam song, we've done it recently at the Prior Lake's Farmer's market with the Rhubarbarians - it would add an 'up tempo' number - gonna try mandolin, although it might work with Lynn on fiddle as well. This is another song that overlaps the Singleton Street repertoire (there's 1/2 dozen songs they do that we either do or have done in the past).

Story of the Mighty Mississippi: this is one from Mike Seeger (not sure where he got it). I do it on twelve-string and I'm pretty close to learning the words. The twelve string is not worth bringing for shorter gigs (less than 15 songs), but we'd probably take to Dulano's or any venue where we need to cover at least two hours worth of music.

I Have an Aged Mother: I usually shy away from Mother songs, especially dying mother songs, but when I heard the Carter family do this recently I added it to the 'consider' list. I looked at it last night and realized that some of the appeal is a seed that Paula Bradley planted when I took an old-time guitar workshop from her a couple years ago. The other version I have is from the Rhythm Rats with her singing the lead. This is a 'new song' to us.

East Virginia Blues: I have been looking at this song for a while. I have a number of versions, but haven't come up with a treatment that suits me. For awhile, I was thinking mandolin and guitar, then fiddle and guitar. Recently I heard the Carter family do it and I'm thinking guitar-guitar with full duet treatment throughout. I went through it last night and the lead plays out naturally in C position - I started in F, but I think E might be the key that works.

Last Gold Dollar: this is one we've performed. We learned this from Kim and Jim Lansford and Lynn is singing lead. It a 'full-duet' song where we both play guitars. Main issue is that it is 'wordy', so getting all the verses back will take a bit of time.

There are also tunes that we can work out using mando-fiddle or guitar-fiddle. I usually don't like to do more than one or two of these per set, but if we're playing for 3 hours or more, this is a relatively easy was to add material.

I have a number of other songs on the 'to consider' list, so we'll have to see how it goes - some things I think will work don't translate into a bob-i-lynn treatment and I know we're also gonna get sick of some of our current songs. Lynn has also looked at some songs, so maybe we can add another one where she sings lead. Right now we'll be focusing on the MBOTMA Guitar and Duet contests; other than a couple of farmer's markets, we don't have any gigs set for the fall.