The Oldtimers on My Knees Again
More than 40 years ago I wrote my first banjo volume, Clawhammer Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus. Near five years agone I decided it was fourth dimension for a follow up, so I started working on it. Recently nosotros received delivery of the new volume – Clawhammer Banjo ~ Tunes, Tips & Jamming. To brand it easy to use, the new volume has ringlet binding and contains 44 tunes non included in the Ignoramus. I've also loaded it with playing and jamming tips equally well every bit data to help people join jams and improvise plus almost 200 vintage photos
To give yous a flavor of what'due south in Clawhammer Banjo ~ Tunes, Tips & Jamminm, here is an excerpt from the volume with the tune, "Fall on My Knees."
If you have never used my tab before, here is a diagram showing y'all how to employ it:
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Fall on My Knees
Every summer in the early on 1970s, I used to jump in my 1964 Volvo sedan and travel to different fiddlers conventions in the South. In the dorsum seat, I stacked my fiddle, banjo, mandolin and guitar. On top of that I threw my sleeping handbag and a paper purse that held my provisions, which unremarkably consisted of a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. Back then, it seemed like almost every community in southwest Virginia and western North Carolina held their own petty fiddlers convention that was put on to enhance money for the Lions Social club or the local fire section. Besides the fun of competing for ribbons and cash prizes, it was great to meet some of the old-timers who came out of the hills with their banjos and fiddles to compete and jam.
One of the greatest musicians of the older generation that I got to know at these conventions was Tommy Jarrell. Although he never entered any of the contests, he was there to play music with nigh anybody who would join in…and a lot of us did. It was from Tommy that I learned this version of "Fall on My Knees," who said he first heard the tune in virtually 1915.
"Fall on My Knees" is a Surry and Grayson County, Virginia version of an older folk vocal known as "Lonesome Road" or "Look Upwardly and Down That Lonesome Road." Information technology appeared in Carl Sandburg's book, The American Songbag (1927) and has been recorded by anybody from Joan Baez, Doc Watson and even that scoundrel, Wayne Erbsen.
Playing "Fall on My Knees" is about every bit easy as eating apple tree pie. It'southward written out for you in double C tuning (gCGCD). If you make your C chord with your middle finger you tin can easily play the A small-scale (Am) chord by calculation your index finger to the 3rd string, 2nd fret.
Hot Lick #1: When the melody goes upwards to the 1st string, 2d fret in measures 3, 5, and 9, yous can play a hammer-on. The 2d time in that location is a 1st cord, 2d fret in those same measures, y'all tin play a pull-off.
Hot Lick #2: You lot tin can play a hammer-on-pull-off combo in measures 3, five and 9.
Lyrics:
Look upward, look down, that lonesome former road,
Hang down your little head and cry, little girl,
Hang down your piddling caput and cry.
In that location'due south more than one, Lord, in that location'southward more than than two,
No other woman like you, trivial girl,
No other adult female like you.
I wish to the Lord that I'd never been born,
Or died when I was young, little girl,
Or died when I was immature.
I never would accept kissed your red, rosy cheeks,
Or heard your lying tongue,
Or heard your lying tongue.
Yous've told me more lies than there'southward stars in the skies,
You'll never get to sky when you die, little daughter,
You'll never get to heaven when you die.
My suitcase is packed and my trunk is unsewn,
Goodbye little adult female, I'm gone, I'm gone,
Practiced-bye petty woman, I'one thousand gone.
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You can purchase this book on our website equally a spiral leap paperback with CD or instant-download PDF (comes with MP3s). It is likewise available on Amazon. Wayne has too written Clawhammer Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus, Southern Mountain Banjo, Bluegrass Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus, Bluegrass Jamming on Banjo, and Starting Bluegrass Banjo from Scratch- all available on our website and Amazon.
Source: https://nativeground.com/fall-on-my-knees/
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