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