Banjo Hangout Top 100 Old Time Songs

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I learned this C tune from a 1931 Okeh recording of the Mississippi old time string bad the Newton County Hillbillies, featuring Alvis Massengale on fiddle. It's a practice recording from a few ye...

My take on Roscoe Holcomb's (Rosko Halcomb's) classic 2ftl version of "Single Girl" in open D tuning (f#DF#AD)...

2010 on Jason Burns #3...

A bit of Prohibition and Depression era history here, the poor farmer couldn't make enough money raising cotton. Four Cent Cotton led to raising corn instead for whiskey. Times haven't changed...

Rose Conley, 2 finger thumb lead, based on Grayson & Whittier's 1927 version, tuned a half step or so low out of standard "G"...

Based on Doc Watson's banjo playing, he learned this as a child from his uncle Jake Miller and said it was a courting song. It was a pleasure to look at the video, hear his banjo and vocals, and l...

Such a compelling old time tune handed down to us from the great Hobart Smith. I prefer to play it at this slow groove tempo....

From the CD "The Old Texas Fiddle, Vol. II", with Howard Rains and Tricia Spencer, fiddles; Brendan Doyle, banjo; Nancy Hartness, guitar; Charlie Hartness, ukulele; Virginia Musser, bass. Record...

Upload for the Old Time TOTW for December 4, 2020. The tune is generally called Too Young to Marry, but the fiddler I learned it from called it Buffalo Nickel....

The date hasn't rung any bells yet, but the minor key sure gives it a rather melancholy feel. I listened to some vintage Piney Creek Weasels to arrange this one and used a rare Am tuning rare -- ...

Dock Boggs' Country Blues/Hustling Gambler in f#CGAD tuned a half step or so low......

A fine Tune of the Week from North Carolina with a crooked part that suits the title Green River....

A wonderful champion fiddler, Tatiana Hargreaves, plays the Tune of the Week and bases it upon the older fiddler Emma Lee Dickerson. In an interview Tatiana claims that's her doppelg?nger, a new w...

Rose for Polly is a pretty, 3-part song in a minor key. Perhaps it makes for a good love story -- a hopeful suitor gives her a rose, she responds sweetly, but with a bit of reservation, though conti...

This is the one of the versions for the old-time Tune of the Week, differing from the famous Uncle Dave Macon song. My arrangement comes from Erich Schroeder (BHO's vrteach). I wish he was still ...

Finger picked on a newly crafted 11"walnut and pecan open back banjo in open D tuning d a f# d f#....

Tunaday #106 - In G Modal-f (fDGCD)....

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This version of Wolf Creek is from Harvey "Pappy" Taylor (b.1894), recorded in 1974. Slowed down from the original, it makes a pretty piece in fDGCD tuning. DOI stands for Dear Old Illinois, a...

A tune I learned while playing banjo to Melvin Wine's fiddling. aDAde...

Tunaday #100 - In G Modal-f (fDGCD)....

Hills of Mexico - mix of Rosko Halcomb and Bye Hutchins lyrics, banjo tuned eC#F#BC# (fDGCD tuned down a step)...

played on new walnut and maple 11" open back in double C tuning...

Played in the key of A using the "John Brown's Dream" or Low Bass tuning--a A(low) A C# E. Banjo is a Fairbanks Whyte Laydie #2....

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 12/14/18, this sentimental song plays out in clawhammer rather than the Scruggs picking style I originally learned it in....

For the old-time Tune of the Week, Sweet Nell is the title name of a CD by a Washington-based group who wrote the tunes. The tune is named for Nell, the daughter of Paul Newman, partners in a charity...

Frosty Morn is the old-time Tune of the Week, 8/24/18. Related to Cold Frosty Morning in some of its melody and chordal movement, here's a medley of the two. The first was learned from the guitar...

This is the Luther Davis version of Sail Away Ladies, or at least my interpretation of it. Presented for Tune Of The Week for August 2nd, 2018. In any case a fine tune!...

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/8/18, Trouble on My Mind was recorded by Kentucky fiddler John Salyer's sons at home. Salyer never recorded commercially, but was an excellent fiddler. This t...

In gCGce. I've been obsessed with this tune played on the banjo, since playing with my friend Barbara last summer. I have played the tune on the fiddle, for years, but not on the banjo. Influenced ...

A multitrack recording using a Tascam multitrack recorder, a very slow, lazy and very simplified version of Larry Unger's tune "Elkins." Enoch 12" Tradesman (stuffed with a small towel at...

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 4/13/18, Snake wrote this tune during a recording session and it was was recorded and kept for posterity with this title that was reminiscent of his experience as a...

For the old-time Tune of the Week, March 23, 2018. Susannah Gal goes by other titles. This one comes from the duet CD of Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham, both from the Round Peak, NC region. Their ...

Made this banjo duet recording with Ed Britt back in November, 2014. We still play it when we go busking in Harvard Square....

Banjo tuned aDADE....

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A good ol' Oscar Wright tune that I first learned from Miles Krassen's Clawhammer Banjo book, but I have set here in the Half Shaved tuning (f#DADE)....

Clyde Davenport, Kentucky fiddler and banjo player from Kentucky, still must be alive today, in his 90's because I can't find anything otherwise. There's a youtube of him playing at his birt...

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This old-time Tune of the Week for 8/11/17 reminds us in melody of some other traditional songs, such as Gotta Travel On and even Worried Man Blues. The Monroe Brothers recorded this as their first e...

My Long Journey Home - G tuning...

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/2/17, this is R.D. Lunceford's recording from his seminal CD Drop-Thumb, 21 Clawhammer Banjo Solos. He graciously gave permission to upload it here and his tab...

Jake Phelps was a Kentucky fiddler who is known for the "unusual tunes" he played. This recording is multi-tracked with cello banjo accompaniment. I find Across the Plains enchanting and think...

For the old-time Tune of the Week, Green Willis is named for a fiddler from Willis, Virginia. It's also called The Raw Recruit. When it's played in slow jig time, it's called Chapel Hill Ma...

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Ric Hollander - My arrangement of Kitchen Girl. Played on the Romero with Nylgut strings. Arrangement: Copyright 2012 Ric Hollander - All Rights Reserved...

For the old-time Tune of the Week, 11/26/16, this old minstrel tune comes from Thomas F. Briggs' Banjo Instructor of 1855. I'm playing on a Gold Tone cello banjo in order to play in the key of ...

First Published in 1840. Vocal, Early Banjo, Castanets, and Donkey Jawbone...

Early Banjo by James Hartel, Sweeney Model Belle Breezing was born in 1860 and was a nationally known Madam in Lexington, Kentucky. Belle's first job began when she was 19 years old, in a brothel...