# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  What old-time/traditional vocal tune are you working on?

## Mark Miller

A lot of the focus here seems to be on fiddle tunes. I love 'em, but I'm sure lots of us love old traditional vocal tunes too. So I thought I'd start a thread on that and see if it sticks. 

The one I'm starting on now is I've Been All Around This World. I can crib from Grisman and Garcia, and Grandpa Jones if any of the feel can transfer from banjo to mandolin-- never tried thinking that way before. I love the tune, and don't want just to stick with various versions Garcia did.  I'm also revisiting I'm Going That Way as played by Bill Monroe with Charlie in the early days, trying to get the second break down. I think the Bill and Charlie stuff counts as old-time, right?  It isn't bluegrass yet. I love the way Bill mixes in a few blue notes with the jangly double-stops in this tune.

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## Tobin

I'm not big on vocals - I like the sound of instruments too much to want to spoil it with singing, LOL.  But there are a few songs I like that I'll do when I'm by myself.  Thus far, I have avoided singing in public.

Year of Jubilo (aka Kingdom Coming, aka _Lincoln's Gunboats_) is a fun tune to play by itself, and the lyrics are kind of fun to sing.  

Another one that I think is really fun, but would have to be very careful about ever doing in front of people, is _Uncle Ned_, while playing clawhammer banjo.  And speaking of songs that go well with banjo, I admit to having tried _Ducks on the Millpond_ a few times.  Heck, I'd probably like to emulate anything Tommy Jarrell did.

One that I'd really like to get going with some other people who can sing harmony is _Working on a Building_, the way Bill Monroe did it.  What a great old-timey song.

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## BlueMt.

I'm working on "Great High Mountain" more towards the Jack White version than the Ralph Stanley one.  I'm also working on "Wayfaring Stranger" solo singing with fiddle.

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## terzinator

I Been All Around This World is a great one. 

Also, Louis Collins.

If you enjoy Grisman/Garcia, it's all old-time awesomeness.

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Simon DS

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## Mark Miller

Garcia and Grisman's version of Louis Collins got me into Mississippi John Hurt, which got me into fingerpicking.  I love MJH.  One of the few things that can make me put down my mandolin.

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## Charles E.

Bill and Charlie Monroe offer a wealth of material from the Bluebird recordings. Bill and Earl Bollic, aka The Blue Sky Boys also have wonderful songs, esp "Are You From Dixie".

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## JeffD

One can get a lot listening to Blue Sky Boys. A lot.

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Mark Gunter

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## Mark Miller

Nice!  I have to check the Blue Sky Boys out. Especially since both groups I play with (by which I mean get together in each other's living rooms to play) are just two guitars and me. Which suits me fine. I'm really drawn to just the guitar and mando combo:  Bill and Charlie, Bill and Doc, Doc and Dawg, Dawg and Jerry. Now I have another to add to the list. Thanks!

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## Mark Miller

Oh and Jeff, thanks for the link to your Charlie Poole band. That's part of what inspired this thread

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## JeffD

I am not a purist or a musicologist or in any way certified to know this stuff, but when someone wants to know how a mandolin does old time, and how its different from how a mandolin does bluegrass, I always point to the Blue Sky Boys. In my mind its "how old time mandolin" is done.

What I mean is not that I like them best or think they are the best. Its that many other old time mandolin recordings, fantastic though they are, are not as "pure" a representation of the style I am trying to explain. (The way Bill defines bluegrass.) The Louvin Brothers, for example, to me, have taken a few steps from old time towards country music. Dawg and Jerry, well they have taken more than a few steps off the planet, (but darn they drag a lot of fantastic music with them).

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## JeffD

> I'm really drawn to just the guitar and mando combo:  Bill and Charlie, Bill and Doc, Doc and Dawg, Dawg and Jerry. Now I have another to add to the list. Thanks!


You might want to check out the Armstrong Twins. Floyd and Lloyd.

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General Johnston, 

Mark Gunter

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## vernob

Stephen Foster's Hard Times. Ewen MacColl's Free Born Man. A.P. Carter's Storms are on the ocean. I'm studying Pretty Polly and all the songs that used the tune. Woody's Pastures of Plenty. Tom Paxton's Rumbling in the Land. Dylan's Hollis Brown. Sarah Jarozs' Tell Me True. Probably more, but I don't know. Anybody know of others? Maybe I could write one? OK, maybe not.

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## Mark Miller

Just started working on Wayfaring Stranger in A minor. Pretty simple melody-based version on the G and D strings, with lots of tremolo and liberal use of blue notes, especially the E flat. Pulling off the E flat to the open D sounds so great. Next step is to work in some double stops up high in the second half of the solo. This is really fun. First time I've built up a solo from the ground up rather than copying someone's solo or at least heavily borrowing. Nothing wrong with that, but this is a nice next step.

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## JPL

"Jerdan Am A Hard Road to Travel" and "Down the Old Plank Road."

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## JeffD

I like Cash on the Barrelhead. 

My favorite version is the Louvin Brothers, but Jim and Jesse did a great version that is old time pointing pretty strongly to bluegrass. Great old song.

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## KrittMoore

A few of the old timey tunes I play for my children each night that I enjoy but don't know how much they enjoy :Smile:  

Make me down a pallet 
Angel band 
Tennessee waltz 
Bury me beneath the willow 

To name a few. All have great lyrics and fun to improvise with.

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General Johnston, 

Simon DS

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## Mark Wilson

Lately:
Working on a Building
Bury me beneath the willow
White Dove
Banks of the Ohio
Shady Grove

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Simon DS

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## Mark Miller

You guys are practically making a list of my favorite songs. I love those songs way more than more "modern" bluegrass songs or anything being written today.

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## Simon DS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg7a...5lQ-HK4Y53q2dQ
Love it, AND it's in D#. Would be nice to hear more mandolin in it. Tony Rice does a great version too, with a last verse that is apparently more original, but even so, may not be everything the author, who was in prison at the time, actually wrote.
Here's the Tony Rice version: 
http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blo...ne-county.html

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Mark Gunter

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## Jack Roberts

Marching Through Georgia, but a little different from what you are used to with that tune:

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## LongBlackVeil

I can't really sing and play mandolin for some reason beyond just the simplest of chords, in a group if I'm singing I play very little. But I can definitely sing with guitar and now banjo too. 

Anyway, waterbound is one I'm working on now and having a lot of fun with on the banjo. Leaving Home is another. Johnny walk along (with your paper collar on), Jordan am a hard road is good too. First Unto This Country is one I like but haven't gotten a chance to play

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## allenhopkins

_The Blackest Crow,_ with Autoharp.  Bruce Molsky sang this, and I never forgot it.

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LongBlackVeil

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## fatt-dad

for vocals, I play the guitar and focus on acoustic blues from the 20s and 30s.  Blind Boy Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Rev. Gary Davis - all the blind guys!

f-d

p.s., this weekend, I'm performing, "Police Dog Blues."

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Mark Gunter

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## Mark Miller

As a fellow country blues picker, may I say wow, that is some pretty tough stuff. I've tried some Blind Blake but he just kicked my ass. One of the most talented players in any genre ever. I managed to work up BBF's Meat Shakin' Woman, as long as I never tried to sing. For the most part I stick with Mississippi John Hurt, Frank Stokes, and Elizabeth Cotten. Still wonderful guitarists, but approachable by mere mortals. I'd love to hear your rendition of Police Dog. That's a great one.

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## Charles E.

The late Rev. Gary Davis was not one to praise other guitarist's but he said of Blind Blake " he was a sporting guitar player".

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## Charles E.

Adam Tanner (Twilite Broadcasters) has the best renditions of old tunes that I know.....

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Jack Roberts

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## fatt-dad

> As a fellow country blues picker, may I say wow, that is some pretty tough stuff. I've tried some Blind Blake but he just kicked my ass. One of the most talented players in any genre ever. I managed to work up BBF's Meat Shakin' Woman, as long as I never tried to sing. For the most part I stick with Mississippi John Hurt, Frank Stokes, and Elizabeth Cotten. Still wonderful guitarists, but approachable by mere mortals. I'd love to hear your rendition of Police Dog. That's a great one.


nothing fancy like Jorma, that's for sure!  I just tune to D and play it.  Mostly, it's a song I like to sing.  John Cephas taught me the basic outline of the song and that's all I play on the guitar.  (John was my guitar teacher.)

f-d

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## Mark Miller

> Adam Tanner (Twilite Broadcasters) has the best renditions of old tunes that I know.....


Wow.  Thank you.  That, to me, is what the mandolin is all about.

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## Mark Miller

Just found on youtube, they have a super version of What Does the Deep Sea Say (Where is My Sailor Boy).  I tried learning Doc's version of that a while ago and couldn't get it up to speed.  I might have to try again.  What a great tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShA...&nohtml5=False

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## JeffD



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Charles E.

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## Mark Miller

Thanks Jeff.  A great tune.  Care to post your mandolin break for it?

It's Friday, I don't feel like working.  Just want to lay around the shack til the mail train comes back and roll in my sweet baby's arms.  Or listen to and play music all day.

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## JeffD

I play a variation of the fiddle part you hear on the recording. Very close to it. Often I play it with a guitar friend and he does the vocals, during which I do a rhythm strum. The chords are easy.

We have some extra verses that are authentic Charlie Poole but just not on this recorded version.

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## Mark Wilson

"I'm troubled"  

Sit down with Grisman's version and learned a fist full of D licks/fills.

fun tune to pick on - easy vocal harmony

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## Charles E.

Don't forget Skaggs and Rice. That album was a big influence when it came out.

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## multidon

My Old Kentucky Home
Shenandoah
Keep on the Sunny Side
Columbus Stockade Blues

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## Mark Gunter

Lately, _Little Sadie_ . . . not any of the bluegrass versions, but more the Doc Watson version adapted to mandolin.

Like FD, I'm mostly into the old acoustic blues on the guitar, lately _Ways Like A Crawfish_ (Bo Carter), but also been into some of the Singing Brakeman's tunes, like _Rough And Rowdy Ways_

I've been thinking about trying a mando arrangement for _Big Bend Gal_

"She totes herself like a flying squirrel . . ."

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Charles E.

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## Mark Wilson

Down in the Willow Garden.  The range on that song is huge - not sure if I can pull it off vocally without tweaking the melody line

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## yankees1

Darling Nellie Gray

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## Charles E.

Time to revisit this one.........




I love Marty's playing on this.

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## Mark Miller

Just worked out Bill Monroe's opening solo to On That Gospel Ship from the Bill and Charlie days.  I just love the simplicity and drive of that early music.  The little slides with rising dynamics really make this one.  The youtube feature of being able to slow down to half speed without changing pitch is great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a83Mvd5u_Q

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## yankees1

I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky

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## Jim Garber

Tons of great old time songs done by The Carter Family, The Delmore Brothers, Uncle Dave Macon, Sam and Kirk McGee as well as the others previously mentioned. Go back to the old sources, if you can. Lots on Youtube and elsewhere.

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## Jack Roberts

My band has been doing "Washed in the Blood" since we started, but our original lead singer left the band a year or ago, and we stopped doing that piece.  (He has a great "high and lonesome" voice and is sorely missed.)  For 2017 I want to work it back into the repertoire with our lovely soprano now, but it is really a great sing-along song so we have to keep it in a manly key, since our audience is almost always men only.   I worked up a really fun mandolin solo version of it, but I have not put it to paper yet.
Our version is almost, but not exactly, completely different from this one (we do I'll fly away as well):
https://youtu.be/R52heyok9Ps

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## Trav'linmando

Thanks to everyone who has posted. This is some great material and ideas. I'm still a newbie (<4 years) ,  however, I am working on "Sunnyside" and "Shady Grove". Plus the newbies group song of the month of course. 

I should have started playing 30 years ago.

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## Mark Miller

> I should have started playing 30 years ago.


I have this thought almost every day.

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Trav'linmando

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## Bonniej

I really liked the Blind Boys.  My dad was a flatpicker - so the guitars were familiar sounding to me especially the Rev. Gary Davis (coincidentally my dad was a Davis too but no relation)

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## JeffD

*
*I played this tonight.

I Ain't a Bit Drunk

 1. When she saw me comin', she wrung her hands and cried,
 Said, "Yonder comes a booger man. Oh, where'll I run and hide? 

 CHORUS: I ain't a bit drunk, drunk, drunk.
 I ain't a bit drunk, drunk, drunk.
 I ain't a bit drunk, drunk, drunk.
 I'm just from Alabam'.
 I ain't a bit—
I ain't a bit—
I ain't a bit—
I mean just what I say.

 2. She hugged me and she kissed me. She called me sugar-plum,
 Throwed both arms around me like vines around a gum.

 3. She hugged me and she kissed me. She called me sugar-plum.
 Throwed both arms around me. I thought my time had come.

 4. Where'd you get your whisky? Where'd you get your dram?
 I bought it from a yaller gal away in Alabam'.

 5. She hugged me and she kissed me. She called me sugar-plum.
 Throwed both arms around me. She said she loved me some.

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## JeffD

> I love Marty's playing on this.


Yes, great tune:

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Jack Roberts

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## JeffD

Oh and this: 




Good version all. You can't keep a good tune down.

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Jack Roberts

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