Quick note on a 'new' song.

The Raging Sea is a song I started to learn last summer and has now become part of the Bob&Lynn repertoire. I learned it first from the New Lost City Ramblers, than located their source: a 78rpm Ernest Stoneman (which I found on an LP). Both feature a fiddle doing the melody and Stoneman's version adds banjo and harmonica. I worked out a Carter Family type lead and we ended up on two guitars - Lynn is singing harmony on both the verses and chorus.

On my way back from the office today (right after lunch because of current and impending snow), the shuffle on IPod played The Wave on the Sea by the Carter Family: this is a 'variant' and sure enough Maybelle was doing a nice guitar part - different from but similar to what I had worked out. I don't know if what she does will change the way I do it, but I like what she does and feel that using the guitar as a lead instrument can still be 'true' to the original source material.

Searching through my itunes, I also discovered that the Mill City Grinders do the Carter Family version on their album No Corn in the Crib --- with fiddle and banjo picking up the melody. What goes around comes around!