Set List for Homegrown Kickoff

This weekend we're playing a 40 minute set at the MBOTMA Homegrown Kickoff.  This is the first MBOTMA event we are playing since our CD was finished so we start and end with songs from the CD; however, we are doing a lot of material we've learned since we did the actual recording in March 2008.  Here's the songs (and 1 tune) that we're working up:

East Virginia Blues: from the CD, it includes the line "Blue-Eyed Boatman" which is the title of the CD.  

Raging Sea: Our son Tommy is an actual blue-eyed boatman who works in San Francico sailing boats - so this jolly little song about death at sea is a little strange.  I have versions by Ernest Stoneman and the New Lost City Ramblers.

Last Gold Dollar: we've done this for a while and it's one where Lynn sings lead; we learned it from Jim and Kim Lansford --from theri liner notes: it is originally from was one of only a total of two sides recorded by Ephraim Woodie and the Henpecked Husbands who were from Furches, near Ashe County in North Carolina.  The "Husbands" one and only record was made for Columbia in 1929.

(Note: since learning this, I have acquired the source recording, but we're much closer to Kim and Jim's verison).

Bear Creek Blues:  ours sticks pretty close to the Carter Family Version.

More Pretty Girls Than One:  this another one on the CD, it's one I orignally learned from Doc Watson - I've since dropped the minor chord and added a 3rd verse - Lynn plays fiddle.

I've Got a Bulldog: the 'Sweet Brothers' version is our source - Lynn plays fiddle on yet another song about lost love.

Dog Treed a Possum up a White Oak Tree: a tune we found in Garry Harrison's book Dear Old Illinois; we got it when the New Mules performed at the MBOTMA winter weekend. Our contra dance band played it at a dance a couple of weeks later and Lynn and I have worked it out for mandolin and fiddle.

 

Across The Illinois Plains:  another song from the Dear Old Illinois book. This is on the New Mules CD. We do it as a duet and have restored one of the verses from the book.   It is related to other old-time songs about 'The Girl I Left Behind Me".

Rambling Boy: from the original Carter Family - the lyrics, especially the last verse, are a little strange.  If our next CD is titled "Plenty of Dry Goods", this is where it came from.

Little Annie:  a song on our CD - it was suggested I learn this by Bruce Johnson who is in the band Hello Stranger (playing immediately before us).  Carter Family with some Norman Blake style guitar thrown in.

My Old Cottage Home: closing song on our CD.  Learned originally from a Big Medicine CD, but I have versions from the Carter family and others.

We'll be lucky to fit all 11 of the above in our set, but we do have the following in reserve:

Pretty Little Miss 

I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes 

If I Lose, Let Me Lose

Bluff Country Gathering in Lanesboro, MN

Lynn and I spent last weekend at the Bluff Country Gathering in Lanesboro, Mn.  This is an event organized by Bob Bovee and Gail Heil that has been going on for many years. This is our 3rd year attending.  I thought I better capture a few impressions while it's still fresh.

Instead of camping in our Van, we stayed in a B&B: Lynn claims it was for my hip ;-) -- I did appreciate not tramping across the park several times a day and having a bathroom handy.  We put up at the Scandanavian Inn and enjoyed 3 great breakfastes.  It was about 4 blocks from the 'Gathering' and we may very well stay there again. 

I went to 2 mandolin and 3 guitar workshops and otherwise attended some Carter Family singing sessions as well as some 'mini-concerts'.  The Friday night concert was excellent and the dance was fun (although my hip issue prevents me from square dancing).  Oh, and we bought about 8 CDs ;-)

At most of these types of events there is always a performer or something else that is unexpected.  One of the suprises for me was to hear Skip Gorman in an intimate setting - he had been at a MBOTMA festival a number of years ago and I just didn't 'connect' -- I was talking to Bob Bovee about this - wondering if it was because I was still transitioning from bluegrass to old-time (or as he put it, coming over from the dark-side);however,   I think Bob hit it on the head by saying that to see and hear Skip in a smaller and more intimate setting  might have a lot to do with it.  Skip is a very sensitve and skilled fiddler and mandolinist and is one of the best 'cowboy' singers around.   I especially liked the way he addressed some hackneyed songs, like Streets of Laredo, and invested them with new life (often by singing an original, older version than the one that was in my head).

The last workshop I took was on 'Carter' Style guitar presented by Darren Moore and Jeremy Stevens with the New North Carolina Ramblers.  I had seen them perform Carter Family songs the day before and Darren, who knows all but 16 Carter family songs by-heart was playing in the style of Maybelle Carter on a low-tuned guitar using thumb and index finger (with picks).  In the workshop I was able to get flatten out one my finger picks so that it kind of worked for the Maybelle scratch (you brush the top strings back and forth).  Once I got home I tuned my 'farmers-market' Epiphone 3 frets down (C#,F#,B,E,G#,C#) and have tried it out on a few songs.  I also order the same kind of finger-pick that Darren uses which should make the back and forth easier.  We'll see what develops.

In years past Lynn and I have been in some 'vocal jams' - last year with Alice Gerrard!  This didn't transpire this year but there were a couple of tune jams at the Sons of Norway Hall that we sat in on.  I play  mandolin for contradances but most of the tunes I know are not in the 'old-time' repertoire.  However, I was able to play along tolerably well and Lynn and I 'introduced' a tune that we got from the Dear Old Illinois book: Dog chased a Possum up the White Oak Tree.  Later Gail Heil told Lynn that she liked the tune and was gonna learn it.

There was much more, but this will have to do for now.