Other Songs Converted to Bluegrass

[bobby bill]

Now, can anyone give an example of a bluegrass song in a time signature other than 4/4 or 3/4 or 2/4? "Take Five" could work, and it would certainly make people perk up.

I can't think of any bluegrass songs, but if we're talking about conversions, we used to do the themesong to Mission Impossible which is in five. Not bluegrass by any stretch of the imagination but lots of fun.

[journeybear]

I can't think of any bluegrass songs, but if were talking about conversions, we used to do the theme song to Mission Impossible which is in five. Not bluegrass by any stretch of the imagination but lots of fun.

Ooo yeah! Now there's a medley - MI Theme into Take Five. Not "Living In The Past" or "Do What You Like, though - gotta draw the line somewhere!

You used to do that? I'm impressed. Just imagine the MI melody being played by mandolin and fiddle in unison - wow! I'll bet people would go nuts! Especially traditionalists.

Wonder how "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel in 7/4 would convert to bluegrass? Subject matter is a bit off the beaten track for bluegrass, but still ...

[MikeEdgerton]

The theme from Mission impossible sounds like a great idea.

[tkdboyd]

I always seem to get scoffed at, but Folsom Prison Blues is an excellent tune to 'Grass Up'-creating that "Boom-Chuck-a" working the bass and mandolin chop..just seems ripe for Bluegrass. I try to work it in my local BG Jam as often as anyone is willing to play it with me!

[mandozilla]

How about the theme from'Gilligans' Isle'? Anybody ever tried to grass that one up just for yuks?

[journeybear]

How about the theme from 'Gilligans' Isle'? Anybody ever tried to grass that one up just for yuks?

Funny you should ask ..

Apart from doing just that at jams for years, I humbly present the following: Sailor's Hornpipe, a cut from Solares Hill String Band - Tunes From The Western Union, the album that I played along with at the local Shipwreck Museum for 32 long months. Yes indeed, I actually had a DAY job that included playing mandolin. This is hardly strictly bluegrass - then again, this thread is hardly strictly bluegrass - but there is a stand-up bass and mandolin, which plays the lead on the third go-round, and if you listen all the way to the end you'll hear what you're looking for. Remember - be careful what you wish for

Just so you know - I'm not a member of the band, and these guys are a little embarrassed about the way the recording turned out - though I don't think they'd mind all that much. I've worked with a couple of them, and in fact the bass player is also the one from our annual Cajun/bluegrass/country band.

[ChrisStewart]

Sounds good to me, I bet people would enjoy it.

[mandozilla]

and if you listen all the way to the end you'll hear what you're looking for.

HaHaHa journeybear that is so cool...I'll bet you guys get a good response from the audience with that one. I never thought of attaching Gilligans Island to Sailors Hornpipe...2 tunes everybody knows! Thanks for that.

[ManjoMan]

fox on the run was introduced into bg by emerson-waldron; they also did proud mary and if i were a carpenter. emerson succeeded adcock in the country gentlemen.

Just for historical clarity...

Bill Emerson was actually the first banjo player with the Country Gentlemen. He did not stay long and I don't believe he did any recording with them at that time. He later returned after John Duffey left the Gents.

[journeybear]

HaHaHa journeybear that is so cool...I'll bet you guys get a good response from the audience with that one. I never thought of attaching Gilligans Island to Sailors Hornpipe...2 tunes everybody knows! Thanks for that.

Oh no no, thenk YEW!!! But I believe you misunderstood - my job involved playing along with this recording (and other selections from it) as it was played over the PA at the museum, hoping to attract attention among the tourists milling around Mallory Square. I had nothing to do with this fine recording, and refuse to take credit for it, nor desire to have such credit foisted upon me. No sea chanteys for me, thankee! (Though I was there long enough with this music swirling around in my brain day after day that I began to write songs of this ilk, and even thought of writing a musical about the wreckers. Maybe it was a good thing I was fired, after all ... ) My association with a couple of the members of the band came later, or, well, subsequent to the recording of the music.

However, I did sequence the songlist so that it had a good mixture of musical selections, barks, sound effects, and snippets of sailorese utterings, coordinated to coincide with our actual live "theatrical presentations" and timed out to exactly one hour in length so it would repeat ad infinitum (ad nauseum) and maintain this coordination. I described other aspects of this process a bit more fully over at the Weirdest Bluegrass Gig thread, Post #8. Hmmm ... maybe I should append this to my contribution there. The more I think about this, the weirder it sounds ...

Nahhh, enuff z'enuff ...

That's Gary Zimmerman, leader of Solares Hill String Band, on the left. Solares Hill is the highest point on the island, about 16 feet above sea level. Bit of a local joke there ...

[Wesley]

Journeybear - I've been a Paul Butterfield fan from WAY back. Esp the Better Days band which included Geoff Muldaur - one of my favorite singers and guitar pickers. I'm not sure if he gets down to Key West - but if he does don't miss him.

[mandozilla]

Hey journeybear my bad...but it still is really cool!

[journeybear]

[QUOTE=mandozilla;655625]Hey journeybear my bad...but it still is really cool! QUOTE]

No worries - just get a little more sleep and ease off on the coffee a bit, eh?

And it is cool - kind of forgot that was the original point, didn't I? That is, a bluegrassesque version of the "Gilligan's Island" theme ... well, chanteyesque ... whatever!

[journeybear]

Journeybear - I've been a Paul Butterfield fan from WAY back. Esp the Better Days band which included Geoff Muldaur - one of my favorite singers and guitar pickers. I'm not sure if he gets down to Key West - but if he does don't miss him.

The problem with living here at the end of the world is few nationally-known musicians want to make the effort to come here. Even Jimmy Buffett doesn't bother much any more, despite having a recording studio and an interest in the Margaritaville bar. I've been here going on seven years and so far I've seen John Prine with Iris DeMent on a few songs and Greg Brown opening, and Tom Rush with David Bromberg opening, and Sister Hazel, and missed Leo Kottke, Carrie Newcomer, and David Wilcox. I've made the 3-4 hour trek to the mainland a few times, to see Lucinda Williams twice, once opening for Neil Young, and to see Amy Rigby - who dragged me up on stage for her encore! That's a far cry from what's available in other parts of the country, and the amount of music I was hearing before I came here. Especially original music, of which there is very little here.

I would love it if Geoff Muldaur did come here. I've had the pleasure and honor of playing some gigs with him and the late Fritz Richmond, owing to my years spent playing in a couple of jug bands, and Maria too. We also opened for Rick Danko once, and someone in his band was using an amp with a Paul Butterfield Blues Band stencil. Very cool. I also have met Mark Naftalin, the original keyboard player for PBB, a few times. But Spider John Koerner does play here a couple of times a year, and that is a treat every time - always at The Green Parrot, a very intimate setting.

[Wesley]

We honeymooned in Key West. I'm always ready to go back.

At least there's no shortage of cover bands doing Jimmie Buffett material is there? Apologies if you're a member of one of those groups. But growing up in Florida - just north of St Petersburg - I was pretty worn out on Buffetts stuff when I moved to Texas.

In general I think the blues is a great place to find material that can be converted to bluegrass. It is called BLUEgrass after all. The Mississippi John Hurt songbook alone would keep bluegrass bands busy for a long time. Jimmie Rodgers too for that matter.

[Scott Austin]

We play the whistling music from the Bridge over the River Kwai but I usually start laughing by the end,no idea why though..

[MikeEdgerton]

The theme from Mission impossible sounds like a great idea.

Jim Richter does Mission Impossible. It isn't bluegrass but it's good

[Scott Austin]

The theme from the Jetsons is also pretty fun.
{and the crickets chirp]

[journeybear]

We honeymooned in Key West. I'm always ready to go back.

At least there's no shortage of cover bands doing Jimmie Buffett material is there? Apologies if you're a member of one of those groups. But growing up in Florida - just north of St Petersburg - I was pretty worn out on Buffetts stuff when I moved to Texas.

In general I think the blues is a great place to find material that can be converted to bluegrass. It is called BLUEgrass after all. The Mississippi John Hurt songbook alone would keep bluegrass bands busy for a long time. Jimmie Rodgers too for that matter.

Actually, there aren't that many bands here, just a few, and they don't do much Buffett. It's much more common for the bars to hire a single act, usually a guitarist, to entertain tourists. It's less about music than selling drinks, and all they want is to shell out $100 for someone to play familiar songs and keep customers hanging around and drinking. If that's all you want why pay $500 for a band? This generally accepted attitude tends to stifle creativity, but I am all for bucking the trend. Now that the Cajun/bluegras/country band is on a 9-month hiatus, the fiddler and I are working up a duo - he also plays guitar, I also play tenor steel and mandola, so this could work. The bass player is pencilled in, and there's a guitar/bass/singer also interested, so we can turn this into a band pretty easily. It's gonna be different - no Cajun, that was the guitarist's thing, ditto bluegrass, though we'll do some - but it'll be more country and blues, which suits me fine, plus some originals, which have been on the back burner too long. We'll see how things progress.

But no Buffett. Not that I don't like his stuff - I do - but it's so done. I haven't played any of his songs at a gig for going on three years, and that's just fine. There are other songs to do. And if a tourist wants that as part of his Key West vacation that's fine, there are any number of badly done Buffett songs to be had within walking distance. I do have a comedy routine - I start by saying that there's a well-known song everyone thinks is a Buffett song but it was actually written by Bob Dylan, then sing "Wasted away again in Maragaritaville/ Searching for my lost shaker of salt," in my worst Dylan imitation - sounds more like Bullwinkle, actually - and that's as far as I have to go, because people just crack up!

But to ease back threadward ... you've got a couple of good suggestions there. Heavy blues might not translate well to bluegrass, maybe depending on particular songs, but country blues, like John Hurt, and bluesy country, like Jimmie Rodgers, could be great possibilities for bluegrass treatment indeed. Jimmie Rodgers used a lot of yodelling, too, just a natural choice for bluegrass. Also ragtime pickers, people like Dave Van Ronk, some of their songs could work well too.

[man dough nollij]

The problem with living here at the end of the world is few nationally-known musicians want to make the effort to come here.

You got nothin' on me, buddy.

[journeybear]

You got nothin' on me, buddy.

Oh, man! True dat! You are much further south, so far south it's gone north!

On the other hand, if you put together a band, you'll have a corner on the market. You'll be able to name your own price, choose your own material, have the pick of the groupies ... unless your audience is only penquins.

You must have satellite TV, though, right? So you can get some music that way. Also interweb, of course.

[journeybear]

Here is a version of "Radar Love" by The Ploughmen, which includes member Rick Cadger. More of a skiffle group than bluegrass, but still an interesting take on a classic rock song. The captions alone are very entertaining.

[journeybear]

Not sure if this is really bluegrass, but there's a mandolin and a standup bass, and it's a spirited if a little ragged version of a pop song, so without further ado:



There's also this three-song appearance on a local (San Diego) TV show, in which the sound and their performances are much improved.

[300win]

The song "IF" done by the band Bread. First I heard it done Bluegrass was at Camp Springs Festival in '71-'72 by Eddie Adcock's band, I think their name was The Second Generation. Martha {can't remember her last name} was picking with him then, and on mandolin was a skinny kid named Gene, I can't remember his last name either. There are probably some on here that do. I believe at that same time best I can remember that Jimmy Goudroue[ spelling incorrect} and Bill Emerson were part of the Country Gentlemen, along with Charlie Waller and Bill Yates.

[Chris Keth]

This is pretty off-topic except in the loosest possible way but I'll post anyway. I played in a metal band a couple of times for parties (wasn't a steady thing) and we played a reggae version of "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden. We'd get going and invariably half the crowd would recognize it and cheer and the other half wouldn't recognize and boo and then we'd jump right in with the big loud metal intro and do the rest of the song the "cool" way.