Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

I have been absolutely obsessed with

#1

I have been absolutely obsessed with this cover of “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean” over the past 6 months.

These fellas (The Travelin’ McCourys) are a great group of musicians. My wife and I have been fortunate enough to hear them play in Nashville on three separate occasions over the past 5 years or so. All should try and see them if they come to a town near you.

Yo @BanjoBen: You know you should start pulling some strings and getting some bluegrass artists like this to interview about pickin’ when they are in town. Would be a nice feature/addition to the site a couple times/yr.

Anyway, just thought I’d share a song I have become absolutely obsessed with (the picking mainly).

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#2

I like the addressing with “Yo”. As matter of fact, I address one of my friends with an “Yo”!

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#3

Love that mandolin chop tone!

Edit… as I continued to listen, basically all the instruments sound awesome. Great harmonies too!

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#4

Everyone in the band it great but I’m kind of partial to the mandolin. Ronnie McCoury just plays so smoothly and makes it look effortless.

I like how this song references Shreveport since I was born there :slight_smile:

I’ve seen them a couple of times. The first time The Traveling McCourys did a co-billed show with the Sam Bush band. They combined for the encore and it was unbelieveable.

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#5

Loved this song. So, is this what traditional bluegrass is?

I believe I’m hearing verse, chorus, verse, chorus, with some solos, rather than an a and b part structure. Am I correct, or am I missing something? Is there even really a difference with the way the song is structured?

Whatever, I love it!

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#6

Yeah I think they knocked this absolutely out of the park with near perfection on everything. These guys are good.

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#7

This to me is not traditional bluegrass, but instead a country tune (Waylon) with typical bluegrass instruments/flavor.

The A/B parts are big in old time fiddle tunes but really don’t bleed that often over into bluegrass. Bluegrass does tend to follow the verse, chorus (lead break), verse chorus (lead break), etc just like most songs.

Generally speaking on the lead breaks (4 diff in this song) the first person should follow the melody, second person can either follow melody or “jam”, 3rd person can follow melody or jam, and then the 4th break should probably bring us back home with the melody to pull us back into the song/melody and add structure/climax. There are no written rules on this but instead is just common practice.

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#8

That’s about as good as it can be explained. Though I don’t know much of Waylon’s music, I listened again and could hear him all through it. Especially in the intro. Got to check out some more of his tunes.

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