Ways Like A Crawfish

Hangin' round the hotel room 1,700 miles from home, got the day off, so I played this old Bo Carter tune which fits pretty fine on the mandolin.

https://youtu.be/R8BMYMwzE5g

Hey, nice! I never heard of Bo Carter, but thanks to your introduction I now have a two-minute google education on him. :)
You certainly did a great job recording this for an away from home hotel room session - the sound on both the vocals and the mando is great. Also the video angle was good for showing what you were playing, and the titling overlay was a nice touch. I'd love to know something about the mechanics of how you did all that if you're inclined to share.

Thanks Alfons. I just recorded it on my iPhone. I used an old Windows program called Windows Moviemaker to add a title page, captions (for lyrics), and credits page, and uploaded it to YouTube.

My website has a brief article on Bo Carter, as well as a 112 title mp3 library. http://www.markgunter.net/cool_stuff...smen-bo-carter

Bo recorded a whole bunch of "bawdy songs" full of racy double entendre and he is well known for such tunes, but this one is a straight ahead blues tune with masterful guitar playing for 1938 in my opinion.

To play this song on mandolin, I transposed it to the key of C so that the lowest note in the tune would be played at the open G string. Here is Bo Carter's recording of the song:



In C, my vocals are strained. Also, the mood I was in this morning is, I suppose, the reason I played it at such slow tempo ... It's probably better when I kick it up a notch or two. Also I found myself a little nervous for some reason, but didn't do a re-take, this is a one-off into he iPhone video and native microphone. You'll notice that right at the end I dropped my pick and had to resort to thumb strumming!

It's just fun for me to play blues, and some rock ballads, on mandolin.

Great playing and fine blues singing, thanks for posting this. I like the blues riffs too.

Thanks Simon. The riffs were inspired by Bo’s recording, I couldn’t nail them like he does, but I spent time a few weeks ago trying to get what I could. I love his licks too! Tri-ple-ty stuff, the runs have a 6/8 feel, great stuff!