FTX-919 - CRIPPLE CREEK

Mountain Banjo - GUY CARAWAN

16 American folk-songs & dance-songs accompanied on banjo with plenty of good advice and encouragement on the use of the 5-string with two tracks demonstrating the use of guitar accompaniment. He finishes with the English folksong collected by Cecil Sharp, WALY WALY or THE WATER IS WIDE. Recorded by Peter Kennedy in his own home in London 1957.

1. CRIPPLE CREEK (talk before) - 1'59"

2. WEEVILY WHEAT (or CHARLIE) (talk bef) - 2'29"

3. Talk about how he got started, comparison with tenor banjo, examples of finger styles including up-picking, frailing & double-thumbing with fragment of song GROUNDHOG with talk about ballad accompaniment - 4'49"

4. I AM A RAKE AND A RAMBLING BOY (retuning & talk bef) - 2'48"

5. THE YOUNG MAN WHO COULDN'T HOE CORN (talk bef) - 2'27"

6. IDA RED (talk bef) - 1'30"

7. SAIL AWAY LADIES or DON'T YOU ROCK 'EM DADDY-O (talk bef about pop version) - 2'05"

8. OLD BLUE (with guitar) - 2'58"

9. Talk about learning from oral tradition - 1'02"

10. KICKING MULE - 1'44"

11. THE TURTLE DOVE (tuning & talk bef) - 2'20"

12. CINDY - 3'03"

13. THE THREE PIGGIES (talk bef) - 2'31"

14. DANCE, BOATMAN, DANCE (talk bef) - 2'06"

15. CUMBERLAND GAP (talk bef about long neck) - 1'58"

16. TURKEY IN THE STRAW (talk bef about his father) - 1'45"

17. THE KENTUCKY MOONSHINER (with guitar) (talk bef) - 2'21"

18. THE WATER IS WIDE (with guitar) - 2'48"

Recorded by Peter Kennedy, London 1957. Edited by Peter Kennedy & first published on Folktrax cassettes 1976.

GUY CARAWAN was born in California in 1928. His father came from Mesic, N.Carolina and his mother, Henrietta Kelly, from S.Carolina. Guy took a master's degree in Sociology with BA in Maths. Before becoming a folksinger he travelled Mexico and Canada and crossed the States. He lived 2 years in New York and spent two summers "down south" studying the mountain people and learning to play the banjo - mountain style. After making this recording in Peter Kennedy's home in London in 1957, Guy started working as a sociologist at The Highlander Center at New Market, Tennesee.

Although both 7 and 9-string banjos were manufactured, the 5-string became the most popular and in the Appalachian mountains the farmers crafted their own instruments - often without frets. (Listen to FRANK PROFFITT on FTX 931-3). As they had done with guitar, the mountain banjo-pickers developed their own ways of tuning the strings to suit the particular ballads and dance- tunes. With its unfretted drone string, the 5th or high G, this type of mountain banjo is particularly suited to playing the fiddle and ballad tunes that came from Britain and Ireland. Guy, who owes much to Pete Seeger's inspiration, like him, uses a long-necked banjo. This gives the advantage of 3 extra frets and thus a greater freedom to the folksinger in his or her choice of key and sometimes used to give a deeper sound. An example of this is THE KENTUCKY MOONSHINER sung one tone (2 frets) below normal.