Bluegrass & Oldtime

Interviews

Here is an unpublished interview with John Herald.

John Herald (of The Greenbriar Boys) (1981)

Transcriptions

Wind Chimes and Nursery Rhymes

This is a lovely banjo solo by Tony Ellis, from an excellent anthology.

Jackson Stomp

One of my first transcriptions: a banjolin solo by the New Lost City Ramblers, from String Band Instrumentals.

Daybreak in Dixie

This early classic from the Stanley Brothers, written by mandolinist Bill Napier, has been much anthologised—including under bizarre alternative titles, such as Banjo in the Hills and Ralph’s Banjo Special (!) The original recording is here.

I transcribed it over fifty years ago, around the time I was (briefly) playing with a British Bluegrass group, The Cardboard Mountain Boys. It is in breakdown form; so in this case, rather than present a score (which would consist largely of rests), I give here the (consecutive) instrumental breaks. Note that the last bar of 3B and the first bar of 4A overlap.

Bonaparte’s Retreat

From the playing of the amazing Molly Tuttle.

British Bluegrasssunk without trace

Strange though it may seem, England in the late 1960s and early ’70s had a thriving Bluegrass scene. The sound of English accents requesting to be carried back to their old mountain homes in Virginia is, inevitably, bizarre to American ears; but the instrumental standard, and in fact the musical standard generally, were pretty high.

Some of it made its way on to the BBC’s Country and Folk programmes, whence these recordings. I apologise for the quality of them: but they were done on a reel-to-reel tape recorder over fifty years ago!

Malcolm Price’s Trio at that time consisted of Ian McCann (mandolin & autoharp), Roger Churchyard (fiddle), and John Field (banjo).

I was fortunate enough to go to university with John (who was also an excellent fiddle-player and instrument-maker); we became lifelong friends, and I learned a lot from him.