5 string Banjo America’s National Instrument.

[thereallyniceman]

I have recently discovered and old record album that I had not come across before and thought that I would share it with you. It contains some plectrum tracks but mostly Classic fingerstyle.

5 string Banjo America’s National Instrument.

 

DOWNLOAD THE FULL RECORDING HERE

Track Listing:

01 Come on Down South                       Ted Shawnee

02 Southern Kaffe Klatch                    Alexander Magee

03 Hungarian Dance No.6                    Frank Bradbury

04 Waiting for the Robert E. Lee         Ted Shawnee

05 Massa’s in the cold, cold ground     Fred Bacon

06 Dance of the Hours                           Frank Bradbury

07 Jolly Darkies                                      Alexander Magee

08 Dill Pickles                                         Ted Shawnee

 

The sleeve notes are interesting for their inventiveness, if not their accuracy. I was a little surprised to read that Joel Walker Sweeney “invented” the banjo in 1831. :-)

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The track “Dance of the Hours” by Bradbury is amazing and I have added the music score to the MUSIC LIBRARY for those brave enough to try, but although arranged by Bradbury it does not seem have all of the embellishments of the recording.

 

ENJOY !

 

FRANK BRADBURY: DANCE OF THE HOURS

[Richard William Ineson]

Frank Bradbury made a wonderful job of playing his arrangement of this tune, made famous by, amongst others Alan Sherman,  'Hello muddah, hello faddah'. I remembered that there are one or two mistakes in the score, so here are the corrections which were pointed out to me by me banjo teacher, about fifty years ago.

Page one, bar 16, the sixth note should be C.

Page 3, we used to play the tragic bit (take me back to Camp Grenada) as follows (this is not a mistake, just an alternative way of playing this section) from bar 13, open G on the third string accompanied by Eb and G 4th position, then Eb on the third string accompanied by G and C, 8th position - forget the triplets, play the same time values as bar 17.

Bar 14, D on the third string accompanied by F and Ab sixth position, this way you can wring the sweet sadness of the melody from the third string, with plenty of vibrato.

Page 5, bar 4, the third note should be F#.

This is great fun to play even if you can't, like me, play it at this speed. The tone of Frank's banjo is beautiful, especially in the tremelo passage.

[carrie horgan]

Just thought I would share a link to this 'Banjo-istics' album - it has some extra tracks on it.  Bill Bowen's playing is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCbOBZFniQ&list=PLb6ujCgXt0SRr...