When u get frustrated with your playing and lack of progress what song do you turn to inspire you to pick it back up and get to work??
What's your current motivation song?
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Wow! My grandpa farmed with Missouri mules–and he sang to them while they plowed. Nice memory while I listened to your song.
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That was really really good. I enjoyed it…a lot.
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I have two tunes I love Red River Valley and On Top of Old Smokey but it takes a certain voice to nail it.
Stevie Nix sure packs a punch with this arrangement
The Morris Brothers nearly let it slip on their earnings for this song.
I live in hope that one day @BanjoBen will do a banjo lesson close to this arrangement. I have tried many times to play it by ear but it just doesn’t come thru
Both these tunes bring back powerful memories from my childhood. Maybe they will resonate with some of you too.
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That slip was funny, i missed it the first time 
Interesting question. I’m not sure I have a song that “inspires.” As a retired radio guy, music has been a major part of my life, but music was work, not pleasure & certainly not inspirational. I got my first banjo in 1972, took a job in a new town, went broke & had to hock it.
My wife gave me a homemade banjo in 1983, but I never really had time to practice because of work, wife, kids & community commitments. From 1985 until 2010, I refused to listen to bluegrass music or go to bluegrass festivals, even thought my wife was a member of a local bluegrass association that staged a pretty good festival every year. It booked the Gibson Brothers before they hit the “big time.” Bluegrass simply reminded me that I failed to practice & I was embarrassed by my shortcomings.
But I did know how to play Cripple Creek, and when nothing else is going right, that becomes my “go-to” song, my foundation. My kids used to joke I knew a hundred & one versions.
I once heard Earl Scruggs say “Reuben” was his go-to song.
So while Cripple Creek doesn’t inspire, it does put me in a solid place & restores a bit of confidence to press onward. And it’s a pretty good warm-up exercise!
Even now I’m not too interested in songs, but am addicted to the sounds made by the banjo. To me, songs are simply a way of getting more new & different sounds from the banjo.
And this ends my psychiatric session for today. 
The nurse says “Send in the next patient, please.”
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It’s interesting u bring up being addicted to the sound of the banjo. Thats what attracts me to bluegrass too. Something about that metal clangy resonated sound being manipulated and controlled, just appeals to the senses. With the mandolin I love that weird dry metallic hollow woody plastic “lick” sound, when u get it just right.
I think John Prine w/Iris Dement would have been perfect on Red River Valley.
“…What drew the most mo err err mail…” Ha.
This fella played around my podunk little town on the Ohio river a long time before he ever made it big and managed a bit of prison time (came w/the neighborhood so it wasn’t uncommon Bobby Bare’s “Winner” was the lifestyle) actually was seen around a few of my father’s side of the family little picking get togethers when I was very young. He was a lot better than most and didn’t hang around too long.
This song is about the area I grew up in…right down to the town. “Highway 52” runs from Cincinnati (Queen City) and follows that river up to Ironton, OH (Hanging Rock is a small little burg of Ironton with 800 people or so), Ashland Ky, and Hunting WV…all of us that wanted out ran down Highway 52 and never looked back. You knew it was a long shot but was worth the risk.
Lot of roughneck river rats along that route.
Sounds of home. Been a long time since I left, still have family there but since my parents passed on there’s not a lot there for me and it takes a bit of effort for me to jump in the car and drive the 6 hrs to visit. Good memories though.
Second one is Dave Evans too. I like both the songs and know every single note of both. Was raised up listen to my father banging on a banjo in the back dark room down in our unfinished basement. Mom exiled him to that back room when he put up the guitar and put a banjo in his lap. Dad played these songs also.
If anyone ever wondered what the hills of S Ohio on that river sounded like then this is it. Oh, the Judds (Flatwoods/Ashland Ky across the river), Bobby Bare (Pedro), and Billy Ray Cyrus came out of the same 10 mile radius area around Ironton. Lot of music there.
A sound of S Ohio, N Ky, and WV…Called the “Tri-State”. You were “privileged” if you lived couple hundred yards across that river because across that river they were all rednecks (ha ha ha).
@Just_James - If you like that banjo then you’ll love the way this fella could get one clanking (0:07 - 0:08 into the first one…sounds like aluminum cans drug behind a car on a string as the bide and groom drive off ).
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Here’s Ironton as mentioned in the song (but years later)…hasn’t changed much in 70 years.
Cross that bridge and you are just West of Ashland Ky. That’s the KY he sees in the song(s) …or any view across the river of the area). Judds lived just over those hills and over a few hollows.
I lived exactly 3 miles behind the photographer out in the county. Bobby Bare’s place was another 4-5 miles out the same road.
Ironton use to be the pig iron capital of the world. They built mule-drawn canals to move Iron Ore to the North to Columbus. Then it wasn’t. Then chemicals, steel, and coal. Those left too.
Now all the river towns are losing to meth and heroin. And as for the land? John Prine sung about Mr. Peabody’s coal train hauling stuff away… well he got Lawrence county Ohio too.
Oh and about that “Highway 52”? The photographer is standing on a hillside that was cut away for Rt 52. The highway is down below (about 80ft?) and running left to right as viewed. The photographer could toss a baseball onto the on ramp that you take on Highway 52 if you want to head 1 mile down river/West Hanging Rock. Takes about 1.5 hours or so to make it the the Queen City (Cincinnati) once you head on past hanging rock.
Where the photographer is standing is where the “out in the county”/country begins. If you were standing on the other side of the river in KY looking directly back over at the photographer then you’d see identical looking hills as those in the pic across the river.
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Thank u so much for introducing me to these great songs and musicians. Being relatively new to the bluegrass world its always a treat to hear good tunes and find new-to-me music.
And that’s a great story and memories from your hometown. Thanks for sharing. I’m from corryton, TN which is right outside Knoxville.
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Irish and African-American slaves both sought refuge in those hills from North of you in TN to where I was raised in Ohio.
Irish ruled some of those hills and mountains north of you in TN. When African-Americans sought their freedom in those hills and hollows they met up with Irish fiddlers. African-Americans are the ones who gave us the banjo and the “blues”. Irish were big on melodies. Those two styles merged, had a baby, and out popped bluegrass.
Oh I a in Nashville…but I do have a daughter over in your neck of the woods. She’ll be graduating this spring with her bio molecular engineering degree from Univ of TN. Then she’ll move 400 miles (haha) across the state to Memphis and work on her PharmaD/PHD. I visit her a couple times/yr in Knoxville.
Bluegrass for the most part tells a story about all those folks between you and S Ohio where I was raised. Long line of story tellers (I just might be one of them too).
Glad you liked it.
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Interesting Jesse, don’t recall ever hearing John Prine & Iris Dement singing RRV
Scotland has it own share of roughnecks
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We went to see Iris Dement in concert a few years back. Great voice, but it was the most depressing two hours ever spent. The whole night was her wallowing in her misery.
MY wife came from a holler in WVa. She didn’t get indoor plumbing until her Jr year in high school. As a child, JFK patted her on the head while traveling thru the state, telling everyone how bad their lives were.
Even she thought Iris needs therapy & medication.
We all gotta come from someplace, but Bob Marley was right when he sang “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.”
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I do not think they ever recorded it or anything…I can just hear them being able to be able pull it off. Love Iris’s voice. I think she could pull it off…and why not let John Prine accompany her.
I had never heard this version w/Stevie Nicks btw - such a great singer. She could probably sing one of my tunes and make it sound good! Ha!
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You know BanJoe there’s something about Iris that finds me agreeing with you. I 've never heard her live but have always sensed that she was miserable.
Both sides of my family were raised up poor. My mother’s side was the worst. Mom was born in the mid 1940s, shack, 9 brothers and sisters. They lived in an old abandoned coal mine house. Mine owners use to toss them up for their workers (and charge rent). A well named term these these shacks? “Rat Row” (row of houses where all the “rats” lived). That’s where all the poor folks lived long after the mines shut down. They just squatted along with other families in some of the old abandoned shacks.
Mom always said “We didn’t even know we were poor until somebody told us we were poor”…and they were very poor. They were always too proud for “handouts”.
Mom turned out being an expert in Genealogy. She worked daily for years (20 at least) tracing our roots… and we came from a long line of mutts. Mainly Irish until the family rolled out of Hancock county TN with African-American and Portuguese mix in them. They called them 'Melungeons" …Still to this day Hancock county has less than 10K people in the entire county.
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I can relate to your Mom’s genealogy and I love your “long line of mutts”. That’s my family in a nutshell. Thanks for sharing your story.
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You know this story doesn’t stop here…
Flash forward 30 years or so and a friend of mine that played mandolin invited me back to Ohio. It was in a town about an hour away called “Waverly”.
My buddy was an old Vietnam vet, same age as my parents. He was a homesteader and wanted to be left alone. I was bow hunting (I was raised in the woods hunting and digging roots) a neighboring property but the homesteader would never let me hunt his 400 acres of land…he hated trespassers. I’d ask to hunt every year for about 5 years and he’d never let me. Always told me “If you shoot one and it crosses onto me just come on down to the house and we’ll go in from here and get it out of the woods for you”. Well I shot a good 23 1/2 inch inside spread buck and it crossed on him. I cruised over to his house to see about trespassing to get my deer. He came to the door with a mandolin and a broken leg.
I told him “hey I pick the guitar a bit” He said “boy a lot of folks say that and if you can pick then I’ll give you full access to hunt my land”, so he invited me in to pick a tune (he had a guitar). About midnight and after about 6-8 “Old Mil-can’t-hardly-walkies” and picking it was decided to just keep on playing and go get the deer the next day (it was freezing out, deer was fine) and I ended up sleeping in his shed with the chickens that night. Rest was history! Best friends!
So he pleads with me (I had moved to TN) to come back and play with him at Prussia Valley Dulcimers ( http://www.prussiavalley.com/) in a little jam they put on every once in awhile.
Now here’s my buddy- all his income off 400 acres (even today) is from tapping maples and making syrup. He makes less than $15k/yr. I stopped over one day, pulled in the drive and he had the cable TV guys held up one of his telephone poles with a shotgun pointed at them until the sheriff showed up. Those were “his” telephone poles running down the road and the cable company didn’t ask permission to use them. So he kept them boys up that telephone pole for over an hr. I just laughed, pulled in and said “You ain’t gonna kill them boys are you” Ha ha. Sheriff ran the cable guys off…but a deal was later struck that if they could string cable down his poles that he’d get free cable for life. He did the same thing when public water came through.
So I drag myself 7 hrs from TN to Waverly to pick some at Prussia Valley Dulcimers. …low and behold there’s all the boys from the area that had played with Dave Evans and they were all waiting to hear me do a couple of his songs.
My buddy was also a “roadie” for “Pure Prairie League” back in the day…couple of those boys were out of Waverly.
My uncle was the best guitar player in the entire region. He was studio class. His boy was about 20 years older than me. The Stanley Brothers rolled into the area and were minus a bass player so they called my uncle trying to find one and were in a pinch…so my uncle decided to let them borrow his son for the night. He was 15 and could play a standup like nobody’s business. After the smoke cleared after a couple shows up and down the river the Stanley Brothers begged my Uncle to let them take his son on the road with them. My uncle shut it down.
My grand mother (father’s side) use to play on the radio in the early 1900s. Women were not permitted at that time to play with men…she was good enough that they couldn’t say “no”.
Front porch picking is a poor man’s game where I am from. For $10 those folks could pick up a cheap instrument and entertain themselves and the family for years…small investment for so much entertainment. Entire families of 8-12 like my father’s all filled any idle time away from farm life with playing an instrument on the front porch. Years and years and years of it.
Glad I got to play with some of Dave Evan’s original boys 30-40 years after they had all picked in the past with my family (uncles). Was a nice homecoming.
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I love the song Nine Pound Hammer, especially with a group of pickers that are in a jam. I think I watch this video probably atleast 5 times a week. The music, joyfulness, improviation, and companionship just makes me smile. My dream is to be able to jam on a song, not neccessarily at this level, but we a group of pickers.
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That’s what draws me to certain songs for inspiration too, not necessarily the song itself but feelings it conveys for sure. I love the line in that David Allen Cole song, the drifter. “Drifter can u make folks cry when u play and sing.” That’s my goal in music, I want to know enough about my instrument to be able to take what’s inside and express it on the instrument in a way that can be felt by anyone. Like a universal language u know? Like that song I posted, it inspres me because of the feel of it and the emotion and how it’s performed.
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