Banjo Hangout Top 100 Old Time Songs

Played on a Nechville Phantom. Yup.. tonering, resonator...

a quick recording I made to demonstrate some of the techniques I use to create variations of a tune. A tab and lesson are available on my website, dropthumb.com played in open D tuning (f#DF#AD) on my Fielding Catamount banjo (12&#34 rolled brass ring up on risers)

Old English ballad... but here i&#39m playing behind Hobart&#39s high-octane fiddle... lot&#39s o&#39 fun! Playin&#39 a Romero in G modal tuning... and thanks for listening.

This tune comes from fiddler Harvey &#34Pappy&#34 Taylor (1894-1987), of Effingham, Illinois, collected by the late Gary Harrison. I made this practice tape in 2011, playing my 1964 Ode Model 42, in a G variant tuning (gDGAD), capoed on the 2nd fret.

Tradesman fretless~

For a region that has seen generations of young people move away to find work in far away auto plants and steel mills, and in uniform, the song Home Sweet Home has a deep meaning lost on most of us today. The song has been around since before the Civil War, and you will find it in the repertoire of most musicians whose roots are in Appalachia. It is most often played as an instrumental; the song i...

This tune comes originally from North Carolina fiddler Martin Marcus (1881-1974), who recorded it for the Library of Congress in the early 40s. The rather obtuse title makes sense once you know that a pig&#39s foot is a blacksmithing tool. Another recording from one of our campsite jams on Geezer Hill. Don Couchie is doing the fiddling, I am three finger picking in open G tuning on my semi-fretles...

This recording was made in my living room in 1998; we called our trio Wry Whiskey. I&#39m picking banjo and singing, such as it is. The guitar player was Brian Clancey, who now plays in a duet with fiddler Robin Warren as Spirit Fiddle. Brian is the best back-up guitar player I ever heard, bar none. Here he is fingerpicking; we experimented a lot with the mixing together of finger style banjo and...

The recording was made around 1975, at a concert at the First Unitarian Church in Harvard Square. We called ourselves the Beaumont String Band. The mandolin player was Rose Zak, a young lady from Buffalo who had learned mandolin, guitar, and classic banjo from an old Vaudeville circuit string man. The guitar player was Merrill "Mickey" Levine, who now lives out on the West Coast and plays keyboard...

This fantastic little tune comes from Illinois fiddler Mel Durham, and his family got the tune from an ex-slave named Alonzo Janes. The original name of the tune eluded Mel, so it's now named after the man who taught it to him. This is just a quick short recording to demonstrate the sound of my fretless slothead banjo made by Dan Pennington.

Learned from a Mike Compton mandolin lesson. Its minor key makes it sound different from other versions.

This is my contribution to the Old Time Tune of the Week for October 28, 2011. This is a recording I made at Clifftop with my pal Don Couchie. Don is on fiddle, leaning on those double stops just the way I like it; I am three-finger picking on my short scale, semi-fretless Paramount, in open A tuning.

I had a nice jam session early on at Clifftop this year with my good friend Tim Rowell (clawhammertim here on the Hangout and on YouTube). Tim has established and now runs the Traditional Music Program at the Real School of Music in Burlington, Massachusetts. We see each other a lot at jams around the Boston area, but had to travel 800 miles to West Virginia to find some quiet time to do play some...

A happy song, fun to play, with images of little Appaloosas kicking up their heels. Mine was named Cookie. When I sold her, I was able to buy my Bart Reiter Whyte Laydie, so my banjo is named Cookie, too. Honestly.

Probably another one of the very first tunes I learned from John Corzine in So. Cal. My friend and I still can&#39t resist the affectionate name &#34Sally in the Garbage.&#34

By Peter David Quinn Boettcher. This is another on the 1850&#39s Jacobs banjo.

A Missouri tie-hacker tune learned from Hugh Strawn...thanks Hugh!!

My submission 12/4/09 for Tuna the Week. A Texas waltz written around the turn of the 20th Century.

Little Rabbit in Double C tuning on a Wildwood.